


The Shining Dark

by WhiskyFlavored



Category: Bleach
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Because Math is important, Better living through technology, Better sex through science, Cybernetics, F/M, IN SPACE!, Mathematics, Nemu Kurotsuchi is a hot cyborg, Romance, So is Soi Fon, Space Opera, What Have I Done, Yes I put Mathematics as a tag, Zombies, yes zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 271,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3869827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskyFlavored/pseuds/WhiskyFlavored
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Ichigo Kurosaki, talented pilot with a troubled past, and Rukia Kuchiki, covert operative of the G-13, must find a way to work together to face an uncertain, perilous future. Familiar storyline reimagined as an epic sci-fi narrative. 1st of a trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Unbound Element**

* * *

Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine, the characters, names and related material all belong to Tite Kubo.

Rated M: violence, language, adult content, Newtonian and relativistic physics, seasoned with lemons and served in space.

Chapter 1

"This is the medical ship, _Masaki_ , to Karakura station traffic control requesting clearance to dock," he said, a slender finger against the comms. He slid his hand back to the flight control panels as he waited for a response. Sighing, he began to run through docking procedures, his fingers moving quickly but resignedly across the glowing screens. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the fingers of his other hand completing docking preparation by rote. Procedures complete, he leaned back in his seat and pushed the control screens away with his foot. He ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling the already mussed orange spikes, and clasped his hands behind his head as he stared out the wide front viewports. Karakura station, huge and silent, stood in stark contrast to the deep black. From the angle of their approach, the station wasn't framed by the nearby asteroid belt or the twin suns of the system. Only a few pin pricks of light dotted the scene, making the station seem that much more lonesome and remote.

The sound of boots pounding against the metal grating heralded the arrival of his sister. He looked over his shoulder to see her grip the jam above the door and swing herself onto the bridge. She had done that ever since she could reach the lip, and she's done it every time.

"We made it huh?" she said, walking over to stand at the bow. "Nice flying Ichigo."

"Whatever," he mumbled.

"This is Karakura station traffic control, to the _Masaki_ ," replied a syrupy sweet voice, "You are cleared for docking at berth..."

Ichigo flipped the audio from the speakers to his neural interface and noted the berth number and location, simultaneously bringing up manual flight control. "Karin, take a seat somewhere, could ya? You're blocking the view."

Karin shot him a nasty glare and threw herself into the chair of the opposite station. She swiveled over one of the control panels and brought up a computer game, leaving all the piloting to him.

"Ensign Yuzu requesting access to the bridge!" giggled a boisterous voice from the rear door.

"My precious daughters do not need to ask permission to the bridge!" bellowed another voice, this one carrying up the halls. "As captain of this ship, my daughters can go anywhere the please!"

"Thanks Daddy!" Yuzu said happily and skipped up onto the control deck.

Ichigo sighed as he felt Yuzu peering over his shoulder, staring wide-eyed out the front viewport as he worked the controls. "Yuzu, go sit down, traffic's pretty busy."

"That's what traffic control is for, son!" Isshin said, bounding up onto the bridge and leaping into the central captain's chair. Standing with one foot on the armrest and his chest puffed out, he struck a heroic pose. "Nothing could harm the great ship _Masaki_ , named for my beloved wife, as we are guided to our berth by gentle hand of Karakura traffic control!"

"Traffic control can't control everything old man! There's all kinds of crap hurtling around this station!" To exemplify his point Ichigo rolled the ship hard to the left, dipping the aileron beneath a floating chunk of debris. In the back of his mind he knew the deflector system would likely have pushed the debris out of the way, but the less they had to rely on the unpredictable system the better. As an added bonus, Ichigo's smirk widened as he heard his father tumble from his precarious perch and land unceremoniously on the control deck floor.

"Bah, you worry too much!" Ichigo heard his father say from the ground before he was able to tune him out. He focused his ears on the chatter of station traffic control through his implant and glanced back to the navigation screen, a blinking yellow pathway charted through other ship's routes and around major obstacles led all the way to their docking point. Ichigo made a minor adjustment, forcing the computer to recompute and compensate, as he idly wondered how long they'd be on Karakura station this time.

Ichigo smoothly moved the _Masaki_ to their designated docking location, coupling the umbilicals and locking the pressure clamps that would keep the ship anchored. Watching the seal go green on the airlock status display, he cycled down the engines, killed power to directional thrusters, disengaged the navigation computer and thanked traffic control for their assistance. He then swiftly stood and slipped down the bow ladder leading directly to the airlock.

"And where are you going? We have a clinic to set up here!" Isshin called out.

"You're the doctor! I'm going for a walk!" Ichigo yelled back before slamming the blastdoor between the airlock chamber and the landing at the bottom of the ladder to the bridge. Hands buried in his pockets, he walked quickly up to the huge airlock and waited for the doors to part. The scent of Karakura station greeted him first as the airlock doors rolled open. A gust of air rushed past him as the pressure equalized, ruffling his spiky orange hair even more, tugging at his sleeves and carried with it a wealth of sensations not experienced in a long while. Cooked food, simmering in actual heat, the sharp tang of heavy machinery oil and the myriad scents of thousands of people. The low, murmuring cacophony of people bustling past poured through the widening airlock doors, a sharp contrast to the low hum of the _Masaki's_ engines and the comparative silence of stellar space.

Ichigo knew the layout of Karakura station well enough to know that their docking location was right along one of the more heavily trafficked commercial rings which was good for business but bad for privacy. Ichigo let his scowl etch further into his face as he walked out onto the airlock landing and poked their license and registration into the station's mooring control panel.

He raised his thin eyebrows to look up at the banner over the airlock as it sprang to life, reading, "Kurosaki Medical Clinic."

"We didn't think you were ever coming back," said a flinty, feminine voice.

Ichigo glanced over his shoulder to see a pair of women standing at the bottom of the steps. "How did you get here so fast, we only just arrived thirty seconds ago," Ichigo said crossly. As if it were taking advantage of the freedom from the confines of the _Masaki_ , his body involuntarily stretched.

"Inoue works for traffic control, we've known you were here since you first popped up on radar," the other said, exasperation growing on her face, "And that's how you greet us? No, 'Nice to see you Tatsuki and Orihime,' for us?"

Ichigo, rolling his head and working the kinks out of his neck, stopped suddenly. "You work for Karakura traffic control?" he said, working to erase the alarm off his face.

She nodded, her auburn hair dancing about her shoulders as she clasped her hands behind her back. "Yep, I started soon after you left last time."

Ichigo noticed the tell-tale glitter near her temples, the six pointed star shaped neural connector used by station personnel. "Huh," he huffed, fixing his scowl back onto his face. "C'mon then, let's get something to eat. I'm starving." He shoved his hands back into his pockets as he descended the steps, the two women falling into step beside him, Tatsuki rolling her eyes and Orihime smiling girlishly.

The three of them strolled down the wide causeway of the commercial ring towards a popular cafe, Orihime chatting animatedly about what it was like to herd little glowing blips about the station and Tatsuki warming up once the conversation turned to her budding career in the station's professional sports circuit. For his part, Ichigo shrugged away questions of what he had been up to, saying only that piloting his father's ship around the further reaches of the system with only his family for company wasn't terribly exciting. After what must have been his fifth deflection of conversation, asking Orihime what it was like to have a neural interface directly to the station's central processing core instead of answering how long he'd be on station, Tatsuki narrowed her eyes at him.

"You're being more evasive than usual, Kurosaki," she accused, interrupting Orihime's colorful description of the processor core interface and how it tended to make her feel like a giant battle-robot.

Ichigo scoffed, though inwardly admitted that last one had been less than subtle. "It's just nice to be out of that ship," he admitted. He breathed in the various scents wafting from the inside of the cafe out onto the patio. He skimmed his eyes quickly over the dozens of people moving past, the vibrant colors so different from the endless night of space and gunmetal gray of the ship. He cleared his throat and leaned back, fixing his amber eyes on a far away point and returned to sipping his tea. Orihime clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes shining with sorrow while Tatsuki quirked her mouth at him.

"Well, now that you're out of that ship and back on the station you should think about what you're going to do with yourself," Tatsuki said, finishing her tea and standing up. "There are a lot of people who missed you."

"Are you leaving Tatsuki?" Orihime asked, voice tinged with a hint of pleading.

"Yeah, I'm late for a training session. It was nice seeing you again Ichigo, you guys should come to a match sometime, Orihime has tickets. I'll see you guys later." With that, she headed off onto the causeway and blended in with the people walking past.

Finding himself sitting alone with Orihime, Ichigo let the silence draw out interminably as he watched her facade of girlish enthusiasm slip away. Her smile faltered and she nervously clasped her hands together in her lap. He quietly continued to sip his tea, finally shooting a glance up to her gray eyes. Hesitantly, she forced a smile onto her face that didn't quite reach her eyes. He sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair, preparing to speak before she interrupted him.

"You don't have to, you know," she said quietly, looking down. "Come to Tatsuki's match that is."

"I'll, uh... I'll think about it," he forced himself to say, mentally kicking himself for hesitating.

She glanced back up, meeting his eyes with her own. Her face was carefully composed as she nodded once before standing up to leave. "It's alright, I know you like your privacy."

"Orihime..."

"I'm sorry Ichigo, I have to leave," she said quickly, turning away. "I'm sure you're familiar with _that_."

Stung, he watched her slip out of the cafe's patio and into the rush of people. In moments she was gone. Sighing ruefully, he was about leave when he heard another familiar voice.

"Oi! Ichigo!"

Ichigo groaned, hands balling into fists as he dropped lifelessly back down into his chair.

"Hey man! It's been a long time, how've you been? You just get back onto the station?" Keigo exclaimed, practically running across the causeway and jumping into one of the recently vacated chairs.

"Hey Keigo," Ichigo said tiredly. The man had not changed a bit in the time he had been gone.

"So how long do you think you'll be on the station?"

"I don't know man, I just got here," Ichigo said, letting some acid slip into his voice.

"Where ya been all this time? Do anything exciting? Meet any hot babes?" Keigo continued on, blithely ignoring Ichigo's tone.

"No, I'm just the pilot of my dad's ship. I point the ship in whatever direction he wants, that's it."

"It's good to see you again, Ichigo," rumbled a deep, slow voice.

"Chad! Good to see you too," Ichigo said, looking up at the towering figure of his friend as he walked up to the table. He held a hand out to shake.

"I better not," Chad said, raising his right arm in explanation, "I'm still getting used to it." His entire right arm and shoulder had been replaced with a bionic prosthetic. Hundreds of tiny servos and actuators quietly worked in unison beneath a chassis of black metal and maroon ceramic as Chad flexed his fingers a few times before dropping his arm back to his side.

"Fair enough, have a seat," Ichigo said, finally thankful to have the company of someone who wouldn't press him for details.

Far above them a small shape crept silently in the darkness. With a faint whir, it fixed the group squarely and magnified several times, focusing on the trio of young men. Contextual information began filling its databanks as it analyzed the big one with the artificial arm and the tall, thin one with the orange hair. The orange haired one drew up sharply and began scanning the area he was in. Alarm warnings activated throughout its neural pathways and the small shape retreated back into the darkness and slipped away along the high ceilings.

"What is it Ichigo?" Chad asked quietly, beneath Keigo's uninterrupted stream of social updates, seeing him look up at the duct and pipe shot ceilings.

"Nothing, I guess."


	2. Anomaly Detected

Ichigo walked quietly down the long hall, his footsteps the only sound in the empty storage facility. The first order of business, catching up with friends, had been accomplished and now he was on to his second. Hands in his pockets, he ran his fingers over the key in his palm before looking back up to check number over the nearest locker. It was down this hall somewhere. Walking on, he reviewed his limited options on Karakura station.

 _Stay on dad's ship or find my own place?_ Staying on the ship was definitely out of the question, he had spent far too much time crammed inside that metal box that he wasn't about to do it again willingly.

 _Getting my own place requires money and money requires a job._ He sighed as he reviewed his marketable skills. While he had earned respectable grades over the course of his education, he didn't have any experience in any job field he could think of.

"Well, I guess that's not true," Ichigo said to himself as he finally found his storage locker. "I suppose I could be a pilot." He mentally groaned at the thought of trading one metal box for another after just arriving at the station. Grumbling at his lack of options, he swiped his hand against the lock. A whir and click later, the door swung partially open. A notice appeared in his vision asking if he wanted to continue to rent the container. He flicked a finger at the 'terminate occupancy' option and watched the key to the locker disappear from his keyring. A final notice appeared saying something about removing his possessions from the locker within 24 hours. He waved it away irritably as he slid the door open wide and stepped inside. Stooping and brushing the dust from the front of the old hover bike with care, he let a rare smile slip onto his face. Though several years out of style, Ichigo preferred the classic lines of his SHN-P0 to the molded and stylized newer models. After blowing more dust away and checking the power levels, Ichigo attempted to start the engine only to have it sputter and whine. Nonplussed, he pulled his shoulder bag over his head and set it down, the tools inside clanging together. He pulled his jacket off and hung it from one of the handles before kneeling down to take a look at the engine.

A few hours later, face streaked with grime, hands raw and his back lathered in sweat, Ichigo eased the bike from the storage locker and into the long hall before closing and locking the door. Engine purring smoothly, the old bike seemed eager to get back on the transit lanes around the huge station. He slung the bag of tools across his shoulder and pulled the helmet down over his head, swinging a leg over the saddle of the bike and thumbing the parking dampener to off. Another genuine smile found its way to his face as Ichigo lightly twisted the throttle of the bike, welcoming the lurch and tug of real inertia as he was sent zipping down the storage hallway.

Ichigo eased the bike out onto one of the station's transit lanes, roaring along with the afternoon traffic. The station was so massive that foot traffic was unfeasible for cross-station travel. While there was a sophisticated and capable automated mass transit system in place, people still like to drive themselves along the enormous triple helix of the central loop and the numerous branching transit lanes weaving off into the further arms of the station. It was this that Ichigo was banking on, the fact that no matter how intelligent and nuanced automatic piloting systems were, people still preferred human driven cars, human voices over the comms, and humans at the flight controls of their precious and exceedingly expensive spacecraft, just in case anything went wrong.

Ichigo gunned the engine, his smile fading as his took the transit lane that looped near the _Masaki's_ berth. He was going to have to stay aboard at least a few more days while he looked for someone, anyone, in need of a pilot. He parked the bike in a space down the causeway and thumbed off the engine. Swinging his leg over the seat and pulling off the helmet, Ichigo glanced up to the docking ring landing and let his scowl deepen on his face. While a few of the other airlocks were occupied and of those, only a few people made use of them, the _Masaki's_ airlock had a long line of people waiting patiently to get into the clinic.

Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair, mussing back up the spikes pushed down by his helmet. He briefly considered his odds at cutting through the line, using his status as ship's pilot to smooth any ruffled patients, but decided against it. Instead, he hung the helmet on the handle of the bike, locked it down with flick of his finger, and picked a direction to walk in. Meandering along the causeway, Ichigo noted how the station had changed but still remained the same. Different shops, same things for sale, different restaurants, same mixture of scents in the air. He let his eyes glaze over as he walked, music playing through his neural link and his hands in his pockets. Something tugged at the edges of his conscious awareness, and not having anything better to do, he allowed it to set his path through the station.

Ichigo eventually found himself nearly alone down one of the older and darker sections of the station, the hallways getting progressively narrow and low as he continued. He saw a flicker of movement ahead of him and stopped, cut the music with a gesture and sharpened his senses. For a moment he thought he had seen the shadow of a person skim across the far wall. Peering closer, he moved cautiously ahead a few more steps, then crossed his arms and rolled his eyes at himself. He rounded the corner and found himself looking out of a wide viewport window. The shadows of huge freighters and smaller escort craft flickered along the walls. Below him, Ichigo could see the huge expanse of the Rukongai Asteroid Belt curving out into space like a gigantic transit lane made of slowly floating mountains. Far in the distance he could see the skeleton of the planet Rukon, its bottom half torn away in what must have been a cataclysmic impact. Just beyond it was the Iron Moon, an enormous sphere of iron and nickel that still orbited Rukon's wreckage. Turning away, Ichigo headed back the way he came and wondered if the line out the front of the _Masaki_ would be shorter by now.

It wasn't.

Teeth grinding in frustration, Ichigo felt his fingernails digging into his clenched palms as he surveyed the docking ring's landing where the ship was docked. If anything the line was longer than it had been an hour ago. Snorting with annoyance, Ichigo took a straight line path across the causeway and down to a bar he knew would have computer terminals he could use. Slipping in through the door he spotted the bank of small, glowing terminals along the rear wall. He mumbled a greeting to the bartender who apparently recognized him as he walked quickly over a vacant terminal. Sighing, he flicked his fingers across the tiny screen while reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck. He hated to use the wireless link with a bar terminal but there was no way he'd touch the hardwire. All this just to look for a job, he thought to himself as he paid the uplink rental fee and had it establish a connection.

I must look like an idiot, he thought. Ichigo turned around and leaned his back against the cabinet the terminal sat in, trying to ignore the buzzing, tingly sensation along the back of his neck. He put his elbow along one of the metal railings of the cabinet and the tingly sensation immediately lessened. It took Ichigo a half hour of searching through the job postings on the station's official pilot roster board and another half hour flicking through the private companies also looking for pilots to find a handful of decent and reputable positions he felt he was qualified for. By then end of it his neck was numb from the tingling and his eyes were red and dry. After posting his credentials and experience summary to the few openings, Ichigo thankfully terminated the uplink and watched all the glowing, translucent screens hovering in his field of vision flicker and wink out of existence.

Ichigo stopped briefly in the bathroom to splash some water on his face, wiping away some of the grit before rubbing his eyes and moving over to the bar. Collapsing into one of the seats he promised himself he'd buy a better neural processor and ocular implants once he could afford it. The bartender moved down to stand in front of him, casually wiping a glass with a towel.

"Afternoon Ichigo, can I get you anything?"

Ichigo blinked to clear his eyes and peered up at the man before him. "Mizuiro?"

"Here I was thinking you've forgotten my name," he said with a smile.

"Give me a little credit," Ichigo smirked. "Oh, that terminal has a bad ground by the way." He indicated the bank he was previously standing at.

"Really? That's odd, I just had it fixed last week," Mizuiro replied, brows furrowed slightly as he looked over to it.

"It's not a big deal, just annoying."

"I'll look into it. You want anything to drink? Take the edge off the feedback?"

Ichigo's scowl darkened at his old friend. "Water, please."

Mizuiro laughed before setting down the glass in his hand and putting a jug of ice cold water on the bar beside it. "I knew it, I had this all ready for you."

Ichigo sat in the bar and listened to Mizuiro run through most of the interesting news that had happened while he was off station. As a bartender, Mizuiro was in a unique position to glean information from a myriad of sources, all of which he would weave into a rich tapestry of intrigue and suspense. Ichigo guessed that it made him pretty popular with the patrons as he sipped his water and asked appropriate questions and made logical leaps to keep the story flowing. The eloquent bartender wove a description of the fluid and often volatile socio-political landscape of Karakura station and its effect on the different trade unions and shipping companies. Amazed, Ichigo asked why Mizuiro tended a bar in the commercial ring of the station instead of putting his knowledge to use directly.

Mizuiro shrugged. "I like what I do and the boss appreciates me, can't really ask for more than that."

Ichigo nodded and Mizuiro slipped down the bar to other customers. He rolled the glass around in his long fingers, watching the sweat bead against the sides and smear against the fake wood grain of the bar. He took one last sip before standing up and heading for the door, giving Mizuiro a brief passing wave before leaving. The docking ring landing at the clinc's airlock had mostly cleared, the last few patients waving back at a smiling Isshin and a cheerful Yuzu. Ichigo walked up the steps, slipping to the side to let an elderly couple pass, before putting his hands in his pockets and striding up to the airlock.

"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu chirped, happy to see him.

His father's eyes narrowed and he moved to block his son's path. "Coming from a bar? What were you doing there, Ichigo?"

Yuzu gasped, elation draining from her face. "Ichigo..."

"Relax, I went there to use the station's network. What do you think I went there for?"

"What's wrong with the ship's network connection?" Isshin asked, eyebrow raised.

"There were hundreds of people out here, I couldn't get onto the ship to use it," Ichigo replied, teeth clenched. He sublimated his indignation at having to justify himself.

"Did you have anything to drink?" Isshin asked, deathly serious, a stark contrast to his usual self.

"Just. Water. I can handle myself just fine."

Holding his stern gaze for a moment longer, Isshin cracked a smile and clapped a hand to his son's shoulder. "Good boy, I knew it all along."

Ichigo, suddenly in a foul mood, slipped past his sister and father, stepped over the mooring gate, went through the airlock and down the short hall that led to the clinic. The ship itself was deceptively large, the bulk of its interior space devoted to a modest but fully capable medical bay equipped to handle nearly every injury and illness a person could get. Ichigo took the familiar route through the clinic, stopping to check the power draw levels on a couple of medical diagnostic systems, frowning, and then heading towards engineering instead of his cabin. The power plant on the _Masaki_ was extremely touchy, its refusal to cycle cleanly even after years of tinkering was something Ichigo took personally. If left running too long without a manual cycle, minor fluctuations in the current from the power plant would invariably become progressively worse. These tended to take their toll on his father's more delicate medical instruments and his own navigation, astrometrics and maneuvering control systems.

'Engineering' was a term he used loosely, as it mostly consisted of a single hallway down in the bowels of the ship with a low ceiling accessed through two blastdoors and a short stairway made of metal grating. The two huge reactors and engines sat on either side of the hall, each one extending above the ceiling and below the floor, complete with service crawl spaces, neural link hardwire jacks at regular intervals and system display screens at key service points around the engines. Ichigo smirked at how out of date the entire thing was. Modern ships incorporated neural collars that boosted the gain on wireless reception even through all this metal, freeing them from having to use hardwires and removing the power waste of displays and terminals.

Ichigo walked down to the other end of the hall where the ship's power plant was installed. Ichigo sighed deeply at it, rested an elbow on one of the engines and leaned casually against the bulkhead. He flicked open one of the lidded ports and drew a long cord from its coiled spool. Telling himself again that he'd buy a better one once he had some more money, he laid the blocky rectangular connector against the top of his hand. Snapping into place, he felt the connector lightly squeezing against his skin, the small magnets holding the hardwire firmly in place. He tapped out his connection code on the panel of the power plant and instantly the power reading levels, reactor monitoring outputs, electricity usage statistics and the power plant central control console bloomed into his vision, all quietly hovering in space. Ichigo tapped out the command sequence to manually cycle the power current one-handed, his fingers flicking through air, touching keys only he could see. Suddenly, the high humming pitch of the power plant dropped to a low thrumming vibration he could feel through his boots.

Finished, he detached the hardwire block from his hand and gave it a quick tug, letting the spool draw up the wire until it was snugly back in its housing. Ichigo flipped down the lid and blinked his eyes at the fuzzy after-images of the control windows. He walked back down the hall towards the stairs before something caught his eye out the rear viewport. Another antiquity, the engineering viewport was set between the engine exhausts and could polarize to 90% opacity under full engine burn, still providing both light and a means of visually monitoring the engine output. However, while docked with the engines offline it was crystal clear, affording a unique view of the huge sweep of the Karakura docking rings. This side of the station was barely facing into the light, all the moored ships and station angles throwing long, dark shadows out across the surface. The light glinted off the planes of the station, making it look brilliantly bronze instead of dull gray.

It was then he noticed it. A small, almost tiny ship floating unmoored and still, not more than a hundred meters away. Interest piqued, Ichigo leaned closer to the viewport, peering down at the little ship. Its graceful lines were smooth and sleek, its paneling done in blacks and pale whites. Afforded an almost top-down angle on the ship, Ichigo had a clear view through its canopy, and to the girl inside. She was floating around the cockpit, squeezing her way over the front cockpit seat so she could reach the rear one. Apparently satisfied after a few moments, she slipped back to the front cockpit seat and strapped herself into the harness. He watched her pause a moment before glancing up through the canopy, looking right into his eyes.

Her posture froze in surprise for a second before she tapped a sequence on a control panel, darkening the canopy to near black. A burst of blue-white light surged from her ship's exhaust as she cycled up her engines. The little ship pivoted in place and sped away, a pale streak against the starry blackness.

Ichigo leaned closer to the viewport, almost putting his face against it to try and catch a glimpse of the fading ship. "No way you can race around like that this close to the station," he muttered to himself, "Colonial Navy would be all over you." Nothing else was moving outside this section of the docking ring though, no pale blue navy striker craft racing after her, nothing. Ichigo toyed with the idea of poring over the passive sensor logs to see just how fast she sped away until he realized he'd get too much interference from heat blooms from the ships and the mass of the station.

Brows drawn together in a more pensive scowl than usual, Ichigo made his way out of engineering and headed towards his cabin. Pulling off his coat and throwing on his bunk, Ichigo sat at his small desk and flipped on his terminal. Another symptom of how out of date the ship was were its reliance on actual display systems on the bridge, engineering and in each cabin. Not that Ichigo minded since using it meant he didn't have to use his link and implants, but it reinforced the fact that the _Masaki_ was his father's ship and he was never going to change her.

He began rifling through the station's public ship manifest, trying to find a make or model on the little vessel that he had just seen. An hour later and with no results, he gave up. Leaning back in his seat he dropped his chin onto his fist and glared at the display. He had memorized the subtle lines of the ship, the smooth white planes of the ailerons and the sculpted cowling enclosing the engines yet the database had nothing matching it. Sighing, he closed the query window and filed the memory away to the back of his mind.

He brought up the notifications he had on his applications, finding a unsurprisingly large number of rejections. Shrugging it off, Ichigo knew that piloting even smaller ships took years of experience and lists of qualifications that he didn't have, and the background check results he didn't want. He culled all the rejections and lined up three possible positions that had expressed a minor degree of interest in him as a pilot. Picking one at random, he brought up their return contact information and established an audio connection. He leaned back in his chair, letting the thought of getting off the _Masaki_ warm up his voice as he introduced himself to the receptionist.


	3. First Contact

"I'm sure you understand that this is purely routine," the company interviewer said, trying to adjust his sleeves and duck his head to avoid the airlock edge at the same time.

"Of course," Ichigo replied, nodding his head, careful to keep his scowling to a minimum. Ichigo had known this guy's type from the minute he had entered the room. Slicked hair, expensive suit, cheap shoes, slightly annoyed expression, no clue on the actual piloting of a spacecraft. Ichigo didn't know how this guy had ended up being shunted to "applicant reviewer" but he guessed it was probably as punishment.

"I'm fairly familiar with the standard procedure, so I'll just be observing today," the man said as Ichigo moved towards the bridge.

"Sure thing," Ichigo replied evenly. He crept cat-like up the edgeway, his back grazing the nearly all-around viewport of the ship's piloting module until he swung his legs down and settled into the seat of pilot's station. The ship itself, company-branded and not much bigger than a short-range transport, been loaded to capacity and their flight plan fixed and approved before he had even arrived. If Ichigo had any reservations about the mass of the cargo or their route, he couldn't have done a damn thing about it other than walk out. And that would have made the rounds to the other shipping companies, another black mark he could ill afford.

He hadn't been able to keep current on modern ship design while flying the outer orbits for his father, but looking around Ichigo could still tell this ship wasn't exactly top of the line. The engines were just barely within the tolerable limits, the power plant was not sufficient enough at full capacity, and structural framework showed signs of rushed production and less-than-expert maintenance. Still, they were willing to pay him a decent wage to drive their ships from one place to another around the inner orbits. He could humor one suit for an afternoon.

Ichigo stretched his hands and began the uncoupling process and loaded up the flight plan into the navigation computer. He re-cleared the itinerary with traffic control while verifying all systems were at flight ready condition. Hands moving automatically, Ichigo found himself thinking back to the little ship he had seen a few days ago.

"What... what are you doing?" the man asked, clearly confused.

"Going through pre-flight checks," Ichigo replied. _I wonder what she was doing out there,_ he thought to himself. _It was obviously some type of custom ship she was flying, but who flies a two seate_ _r_ _with just one person?_

"Oh, our other pilot does them one at a time."

"Doing them this way saves time, you know, more efficient."

"Right, right."

Ichigo quirked an eyebrow. He could tell this guy anything was more efficient and he'd believe it. The last system check came back green and a loud clunk echoed through the cabin as Ichigo declamped the mooring locks, easing the ship away from the dock. "So, do you have any further questions for me?"

"No, no you're doing fine. You know, this is just to see how you do at handling one of our smaller transports," the man said.

Ichigo nodded, gently nudging the transport in line with the other traffic and rolling into its first leg of the route, the station fading behind them in the rear view display. "Do you guys do this with all the pilots you're interviewing?" he asked. "Take them out to fly a transport leg in a real ship, instead of a simulator I mean," Ichigo explained.

"A couple, yeah," the man replied. "Simulators can only tell you so much, being out here in the real thing is different. People fly more carefully, double check all the safeties, 'cuz you know," and he rapped his knuckles against the large viewport, sending dull clunks throughout the bridge, "This is all there is between us and nothingness.

"Anyway, the ships are cheap to keep in repairs here since the asteroid belt is so close. That's what we haul mostly, ore and minerals, some refined products too though." He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "Yep, we're a pretty big deal."

 _Plus its economical_ , Ichigo thought to himself, _the company gets a transport leg flown for basically nothing and calls it an 'interview'_. _If the ship makes it there and back in one piece, the interview went well, if not then collect the insurance money and post another want ad._ "So are you guys expanding your operation? Is that why you need a new pilot?" Ichigo asked aloud, studying the display screens.

"Nah, we're replacing one we lost." The interviewer paused a beat, realizing he may have said too much.

"High turnover rate in this field, I'm not surprised," Ichigo replied. He watched the interviewer's reflection visibly relax while letting his own darken considerably but kept it turned away from the other man. He may be content to let Ichigo think the previous pilot quit, but odds are they lost a transport in a pirate ambush out in the dark. It would be rare around the inner orbits but not unheard of. Organized piracy was a fact of life in colonized space, there was simply too much area for law enforcement to patrol and too much wealth being moved around to avoid it. Normally pirates would take only a portion of the contents of cargo a particular vessel was transporting and then allow it to continue on unmolested, it wasn't profitable in the long term to do otherwise. However, if the crew of the target vessel resisted, or the pirate crew was inexperienced, or law enforcement was en route, things could turn deadly very quickly.

The transport cruised on through the empty darkness for the next few hours as the interviewer continued making small talk and noting Ichigo's flying style. Ichigo himself conversed appropriately but sparsely, occupying himself with the ship's controls. He was about to make a course correction when the long range sensors began to chime.

"What's that?" the interviewer asked.

Not answering, Ichigo moved long range sensor readouts to the main display. Pushing the display flat, it sprang up into holographic mode above the screen, throwing the dark cabin into an eerie light. Blinking in the center was the transport and out near the edge were two yellow blips marked "UNKNOWN". Fingers flying across the displays and then out into the air above them, Ichigo assigned them designations UN-01 and UN-02 through his neural link while running preliminary astrometrics on them in order to determine object type. Long range sensors could tell if it was a ship or other object, but not much beyond that.

"Bad news," Ichigo said after a few seconds. "Definite heat blooms coming off those, so they have to be ships, and they're coming right for us." Ichigo unclipped his seat restraints and rolled out of the pilot's chair, heading for the rear of the cabin.

"Where are you going?" the interviewer asked, notes of panic creeping into his voice.

"We've got about a minute before short range sensors will be able to tell us anything useful," Ichigo said as he pushed a panel on the wall. A soft suit was hanging behind it. Ichigo grabbed it while kicking off his boots. "Common sense says when two unidentified, high speed, small vessels come at you on an intercept course you should prepare for contact."

"And that requires a suit?" he asked.

"That's a ballistic intercept course, so yeah."

Ichigo passed him as he made a mad dash for the suit storage locker. He tuned him out as he began to stutter and tremble, whimpering about dying alone out in the cold. Fully suited save for a helmet, Ichigo sat back down in the pilot's chair, pulling up the display screens and hooking his neural link up into the ship's sensors. There was something odd about the two ships racing their way towards them, something about their approach, juking back and forth with each other. Ichigo didn't have much time to consider it as short range sensors began flooding the displays with more detailed information.

"This just got interesting," Ichigo muttered to himself over the sound of the interviewer struggling to get the soft suit on over his clothing. Neither incoming ship's make or model were stored in the ship's database, which Ichigo found puzzling, and spectroscope analysis was only able to determine one of the ship's compositions, which Ichigo found troubling. He frowned and pushed away the bright "UNKNOWN MATERIAL" readouts under the target acquisition details header while staring at the "UNKNOWN MODEL" display. Can't be a coincidence, he thought to himself, twice in the same week?

"Transport ship D dash four nine, calling the two inbound ships, please identify yourselves," Ichigo said over wide band maser as he began ramping up the reactors to full capacity. "Hey, can you open a tightbeam frequency back to Karakura station?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I uh, um. I don't really..."

"Who are you, what are you doing out here?" asked an acerbic female voice over the comm.

"She doesn't sound like a pirate," the interviewer said hopefully.

Light silently lanced out from the lead ship and sliced across the side of the transport. Boiling metal screamed through the cabin as Ichigo pushed the engines to full burn. "That one shoots like a pirate," Ichigo muttered.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing out here but you're going to get yourself killed if you don't get away, now!" the voice said over the comm again.

"Oh just shut up," Ichigo said into his comms.

"You shut up and follow my orders!" she said hotly, "I'm trying to save your dumb ass!"

A klaxon began sounding through the cabin, warning lights flashing across the displays all reading "MISSILE DETECTED". The interviewer screamed into his suit helmet as Ichigo snapped his eyes to the screen and watched a pair of bright red dots streak through the navigation display.

"Relax," Ichigo said to the trembling man, studying the display, "One of them is shooting at the other one." True to his word, the red dots arced across the glowing screen, aimed right at the other ship. Ichigo turned his head away from the display and peered out the canopy to see two bright flashes of light sail through the darkness and slam into the attacking ship.

Glancing at the sensor display, he noticed the ship had only taken minimal damage. He flew his fingers across the controls and sent the ship hurtling along an escape vector, putting their undamaged flank facing both other ships.

A burst of movement from the navigation screen caught his attention and he watched another surge of light arc across the canopy to strike the ship that had defended them. Ichigo heard the feminine voice curse as the ship veered violently away, arcs of energy crackling around it. "Engine Status: HEAVY DAMAGE" flashed the sensor system's reading for the girl's vessel.

"Her engines are knocked out, she's a sitting duck," Ichigo breathed. Acting on gut instinct, Ichigo rolled the small transport ship around, resetting its course on a parabolic trajectory he half hoped and half guessed would work. Cutting engine output to zero, he smirked as the attacking ship took a bead on the smart-mouthed girl's small vessel, ignoring the transport. The ship was unlike any Ichigo had ever seen, composed of silvery metal that glistened in the darkness, there was no discernible distinction between framework, paneling, engine housing, or even control surfaces. It seemed to undulate before his eyes without ever altering its shape or profile.

"What are you doing?" the interviewer and the girl asked in unison.

"I've always hated bullies," Ichigo muttered before firing the front maneuvering thrusters, sending the transport into a quick spin. Flying backwards and on a collision course with the mysterious ship, Ichigo waited until the last second he could, right when the other ship noticed him looming up from nowhere, before firing both rear main engines at full burn. Nuclear exhaust roared from the main thrusters and enveloped the attacking ship, engulfing it in a blast of forty thousand degree heat and radiation.

Inertial dampeners couldn't compensate quickly enough and Ichigo was crushed into his seat, the transport straining as it reversed direction.

"That should take care of that," Ichigo growled in satisfaction as the dampeners evened out the force. He had thumbed down the comms to speak to the girl when he caught sight of the rear display. He froze.

With a surge of power, the blasted ship erupted from the transport's exhaust bloom, seared to glowing and trailing raw plasma. With surprising agility, it righted itself, spinning menacing looking weapon systems at Ichigo's unarmed transport.

"Aw shit."

As Ichigo stared deep into the barrels of those weapons, a shape suddenly flashed between the transport and the attacker. A spark of light flashed and lit up the visual displays as it fired its lasers, slicing through the night and into the skin of the girl's small vessel.

"Get out of here, hurry!" she yelled, searing metal screaming over her comm. There was a bright flash visible through the canopy and a loud explosion over the comm before her channel went to static. Ichigo looked up to see her ship slowly spinning away, the wreckage of her right engine slowly drifting out into space.

Knowing he only had seconds, Ichigo grabbed his helmet and jammed it onto his head, hearing the locking seals hiss and clamp into place. He turned to check the display just as the ship unleashed another blast of laser fire. Twin beams of light sliced into the top of the transport, vaporizing the outer skin of the ship and piercing through the support structure, burning through the layers of heavy shielding. Muffled by his helmet, Ichigo barely heard the oxygen of the cabin ignite by the lasers carving through the ship. He turned and looked over his shoulder, unable to tear his eyes away from the macabre spectacle as the rear of the cabin erupted in dancing zero-gravity fire.

"C'mon, give me your hand!" Ichigo yelled, reaching out to interviewer. He had managed to get his helmet on but was pale faced and frozen, hands locked onto the harness securing him to his seat. Weird spherical bubbles of blue-violet flame seeped from the laser fire, threatening to engulf the terrified man.

"I... I can't!" he screamed.

"Just reach out!" Ichigo ordered, "I can still..."

The angle of the laser fire shifted, sweeping from the rear of the cabin forward. The interviewer didn't even have time to scream. Blanching slightly himself, Ichigo punched the emergency release, ejecting the viewport from its frame and held onto the harness of his pilot chair as it rocketed away from the doomed transport.

His breath fogging the view on the front of his helmet and his heartbeat the only sound roaring in his ears, Ichigo drifted weightlessly away from the transport. From his vantage point, he could see the ship, cut in half and splintering apart, reactor fire streaming from the torn and ragged edges. The laser fire flickered and died as the attacking ship's energy dwindled, everything suddenly hanging quiet and still against the darkness of space. Adrenalin pumping through his veins, the details of his surroundings were thrown into sharp relief. The attacking ship had taken quite a beating, Ichigo could see. Huge swaths of what had to be its framework had been exposed by the fire from the transport's engines, its skin was streaked with rivulets of liquid metal. As he watched though, the attacking ship silently moved up close to the drifting hulk of the transport and a dozen long, snake like cables uncoiled from the nose, latching onto the gutted ship. Whatever those cables were going to do, Ichigo knew it probably wasn't going to be good.

Twisting around he spied the other ship, the one piloted by that girl with the smartass voice. It was down one engine but could probably limp away before the attacking ship could finish them off, he reasoned. Ichigo fired a puff from the directional jets on the back of his suit and sent himself headlong towards the tiny, tumbling vessel. Nearing the ship, he noticed its familiar lines, the graceful sweep from the nose over the lateral wings and the subtle usage of black along the white panels. This was the same ship he'd seen out the back of the _Masaki_.

This must be the same girl then, looking incredulously up at him through the canopy of her small ship as he floated up close.

"What are you..." she stuttered into the comm.

"Open up," Ichigo said back, landing a magnetic boot against the skin of the ship, peering down through the clear canopy. It must have been a pretty spectacular sight, him standing on the nose of her ship looking down, the backdrop of space all around him, because she complied immediately. The canopy slid noiselessly back and Ichigo stepped down into the vacant front seat of the ship. The canopy closed back up as Ichigo buckled the restraints around him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice sharp inside his helmet, though this time with less confusion and more venom.

"Getting ready to fly the fuck out of here." Ichigo brought up the ship's diagnostics as he spoke, running the navigation routes with his other hand and opening a promising control labeled "targeting system" through his neural link. The only remaining thruster had 40% engine capacity, enough to get back to the station at least. "What the hell kind of ship is this? Weapon systems? Active Defense monitors? Jump drive status?" Ichigo asked, flicking through the menus. Ship mounted weapon systems, and this thing was bristling with them, were illegal according to colonial law and half of these other systems he had never seen before.

"It's the secret kind, what did you think it was?" she replied.

"The ass kicking kind," he replied.

"My ship _is_ the ass kicking kind, only her weapons are..."

"Are what?" Ichigo asked, punching the controls. A series of tones chimed pleasantly. "Working?"

"Yes... but this is manual mode," she said, looking at her station lighting up with weapon status indicators and targeting controls.

"You don't need assisted targeting when you have a pilot, plus there's only one bad guy, I'm sure you can figure out who to shoot."

"So you're the pilot now? Good luck, the engines are," she started but paused as a thrum rumbled through the ship.

"Reactor containment isn't up to code, but there's a big hole in your ship, I'm sure lots of things are out of compliance." Ichigo tipped the ship down and away, aiming to put as much distance between the attacker and the two of them as he could.

"It spotted us, it's moving to follow," she said, her attention shifting from him to the displays.

Ichigo's scowl grew deeper. They wouldn't be able to shake the attacker with the engines at 40%. "If I get you a firing solution, you think you can take it?"

"Of course," she snapped.

"Good to hear, get ready," he said, hands gripping the controls. He pushed the engine output down past its safety tolerance, walking the thin line between performance and fiery explosion, sending the little ship hurtling through the dark. Cutting output and flipping the ship over, he fired another burn, sliding the ship along a curved pathway and pushing them hard into their seats.

"Careful idiot! Where did you learn how to fly? You'll get us both killed!"

"Shut up back there and get ready!" Ichigo cut output again and eased the ship back around, nosing the ship down and over. "Right where I want you," he said, watching the attacking ship moving towards them. "Four seconds to the firing window."

"What? We don't have a lock on the other ship! You call this a firing solution? I can't hit him from here!"

"You're not going to shoot him, you're going to shoot... _that_ , right now!" he said, pointing.

She looked and quickly switched targets, hammering the firing release and let two missiles streak out into the dark. The dots of light zipped out and sailed past the attacking ship to slam hard into the aft section of the transport, cracking open the huge reactors and exposing the core to the cloud of leaked plasma ignition fuel that had drifted out of the containment cells. It was this cloud that the attacking ship had unwittingly flew through on its path to intercept them. Perhaps realizing its mistake, the attacker spun in hopes of escape. Ichigo's visor auto-tinted as the transport's exposed reactor core went critical, igniting the plasma fuel and filling the blackness of space with their own small, white, uncontrolled fusion reaction.

Ichigo leaned back in his seat and blew a long whistle as the plasma fuel burned itself out. The little that remained of the aft section of the transport tumbled away, the explosion throwing it end over end out into space. 'Target Destroyed' blinked the targeting display.

There was a rushing sound as the cabin was re-pressurized. "Good riddance," she said as she removed her helmet.

Ichigo unclipped his own helmet and pulled it from his head, running his fingers through his orange spikes and swiveling to face her. He caught her shaking out her own midnight hair, dancing it around her face in the zero gravity.

"Seriously, where did you learn to fly?" she asked, pinning him with the weight of her blue-violet eyes as she roughly pulled her hair back and tied it.

Ignoring her, he unbuckled his restraints and pulled himself over the back of the seat, eyes staring at the side of her head.

She pulled her head back as he loomed up in her face. "What are you..?" she halted as he gently tilted her head to the side, his thumb resting along the line of her cheek, his fingers grazing her neck. She felt him lightly touch the side of her head, making her wince as a sharp pain lanced across her temple and down her neck.

"You took a beating when you blocked that laser blast," he said, "Head wounds bleed a lot but its not too serious, I can patch you up but I need some supplies." He released her and gripped the seat again, pushing himself back into front station and buckling himself down. He pulled off the glove of his softsuit and turned it inside-out. He handed it back to her saying, "Keep some pressure on it and it'll stop bleeding. I'm Ichigo, by the way."

"Rukia," she replied, taking the glove. She watched him settle back into the pilot's chair, spinning the ship back towards Karakura station and easing up the throttle to a safe cruising speed. She touched the place where his fingers had been only to get another sharp sting through her head. She hissed and looked at the bright blood smearing her gloved fingertips. She pressed his glove to her head, the soft inner liner soaking up some of the blood oozing at her hairline before it could start floating around the cabin.

"So what do you do with this fancy secret ship of yours, Rukia?" he asked, course plotted and engine engaged.

"I suppose it's not worth my time trying to convince you to believe some kind of cover story?" She smirked as he shook his head, clasping his hands behind it and leaning back, looking out the front of the ship. She stared at the back of his head, his long fingers interlocked and patiently waiting for her explanation. "I'm an operative of the G-13, covert interception branch of the Colonial Navy."

He turned a bit, looking over his shoulder as if appraising her. He said nothing, just quirked an interested eyebrow at her before letting his face fall back into that expressionless scowl again.

"This," she continued, "Would be my interceptor, the _Sode no Shirayuki_."

"So what kind of things do you intercept, covertly?" he asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she huffed.

"Would it have something to do with ships composed of unidentifiable, bio-mechanical parts, capable of consuming and assimilating compound materials, like... say, a transport ship?"

Rukia jerked out of her seat. "How did you, no one is supposed to know that any of that..."

"Well, I do have your targeting and sensor logs up here, they go into great detail." Ichigo nudged one of the displays with his foot.

"That's for navy use only," she snapped, killing off the log display from her station.

"So what are they?"

"They're designated as colonial threat H-L-W dash oh one. 'Hollows' for short."

"So, who flies them?" Ichigo said.

"No one."

"So what are you saying?"

"They're not human." She let it hang in the air as ominously as she could.

He turned to look her in the eye. "So you work for a secret branch of the government, fly a secret ship loaded with weapons, and you shoot down... aliens?" He watched her nod, then turned to lean back into his seat. He caught her eyes in the reflection off the canopy before saying, "I've had weirder days, but this is pretty close to the record.


	4. Loose Binding

By the time they had neared the station Rukia had described some of what they knew regarding the Hollows. Apparently, the G-13 was a branch of the colonial navy that operated outside traditional channels and in near total secrecy. They had been waging a silent war against these Hollows for years, possibly decades. Hollows themselves tended to operate alone or in small packs, behaving more like predatory animals rather than intelligent beings. They were a bio-mechanical space-borne race of limited sentience that viciously hunted and scavenged consumable material, usually in the remote and less populated areas of the system, relying on impressive natural firepower and rapid regeneration of damaged structures to allow them to disable and consume much larger spaceships. They had recently begun incursions into more populated areas and the G-13 found it necessary to covertly station pilots and support crews at different key locations in order to eliminate rogue Hollows and to contain information regarding their existence. When asked if they had ever tried communicating with or capturing a Hollow, she had said that there had been no success in either area for as long as she'd been with the G-13, but attempts were still made if circumstances permitted. Ichigo then asked if she had ever had circumstance permit, to which she responded with a definitive "no."

"So you're assigned to the Karakura station," Ichigo said. The station itself was a small but growing shape against the blackness of space, far in the distance. Ichigo could see tiny flashes of light around the silvery blot of the station as heavy freighters and large factory ships came and went. "Just you, all alone? Seems kinda shitty to me."

"I have a support crew," she defended. She looked at the back of his head and frowned. "They are not going to be happy though."

"It's not that bad, new engine, new cowling, maybe restructure some of the..."

"I wasn't talking about the ship, I was talking about you."

Ichigo tipped his head backwards, looking at her upside-down. "What about me?"

Mildly surprised he could still manage to scowl in that position, she cleared her throat. "Do you realize how many regulations I've broken just by letting you in here?"

He didn't have time to answer as the comm crackled to life. "Slugger to Snow White, you reading this?"

"Snow White here, prep the hangar for emergency landing." Ichigo mouthed 'Snow White?' back at her but she pointedly motioned for him to face forward.

"Telemetry coming in now... holy crap Rukia, what the hell did you do to her? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Jinta, and we're heavy one civilian," she said back. "Just clear the hangar."

"Flight path loaded, the hangar will be ready when you get here, you know, if you can make it without falling apart."

Ichigo watched the navigation screen load the received flight path, avoiding the populated traffic lanes and taking them down to the very bottom of the station. Setting the ship along the route, he engaged the engine and focused on navigating through the station's traffic. "You don't go through traffic control?"

"You don't fly very many light craft do you? Ships this size don't need to go through traffic control and don't need to register a flight plan with the station. Besides, I have an understanding with the local colonial navy patrol pilots."

Ichigo wordlessly navigated the rest of the route. He soon found himself slowly steering the ship over the oldest industrial sectors of the station. Unlike the gleaming paneled sections of the higher sectors of the station, down here it was bare frame, exposed duct-work and huge girders all interwoven together in a maze of stained dull gray metal. The whole sector looked decrepit and condemned. As Ichigo cut the engine and drifted to the end of the flight path, he watched one of the huge loading airlocks of the sector silently open below them, its interlocking door looking uncomfortably similar to massive teeth. The interior of the hangar flickered into view as the landing lights flared to life.

"That's your hangar? An ancient ore loading and processing airlock?" Ichigo asked as he angled the ship to land.

"You know what you're doing? I can land this, I've done it a hundred times."

"With a quarter of your ship blown off and with a head wound?"

Rukia eased her hands back away from the controls. "Fine, just be careful."

Without another word Ichigo gracefully eased the ship onto the landing pad inside the airlock hangar, setting the landing struts on the center of their coupling points. With loud clanks, the struts interlocked onto the landing pad and Ichigo immediately cycled down the engine. The large outer loading doors closed back up and sealed as the harsh landing lights dimmed and the interior lights began flickering to life. Through the canopy, Ichigo could see the airlock status seal light switch from red to yellow, followed immediately by a soft hiss. The hiss grew gradually into a loud screech and finally into a low roar as the airlock was pressurized. The status light flicked to bright green and the internal loading doors parted and rumbled open, the noise of the heavy machinery standing in stark contrast to the virtual silence of space. The landing pad, bolted as it was to the huge ore loader belt assembly, moved through the internal doors and once they had shut, came a stop in a large converted processing facility. Ichigo could see a young man standing on the catwalk above them, arms crossed over his chest, bright red hair done up in spikes, and a frown on his face as he looked over the ship.

He heard Rukia press a control and watched the canopy lift up and slide back. The air of the hanger was cold and dry and smelled of heavy oils, making him wrinkle his nose as he sat up on the edge of the ship, swung his legs over and dropped the few feet to the deck. He turned back to watch Rukia do the same, realizing just how petite she was. She barely came up to the middle of his chest. He realized he was staring when she caught his eye with her piercing blue-violet gaze, a lock of her black hair dangling across her brow.

"What?"

"I'm wondering when you'll wipe my memory so I won't remember your secret ship and your secret base and your secret aliens."

"Wipe your memory? What do you think this is, science fiction? No, we'd just kill you and dump you out an airlock," she said sweetly.

"Relax," said a voice behind Ichigo as he stiffened. A hand clapped his shoulder in a friendly way. "Rukia's just kidding, aren't ya?"

Ichigo turned to see a man in loose, comfortable clothes standing behind him. His smile was warm and welcoming but it didn't extend to his eyes, shadowed beneath his grayish blond hair. "We wouldn't kill the guy who managed to fly our girl back to base, would we? Especially," he turned a baleful look at Rukia, "After what you did to your own ship."

"I wouldn't have had to if he," she aimed a vehement finger at Ichigo's chest, "Hadn't been out there in the first place."

"Oh, well I'm sorry I _inconvenienced_ you miss super space fighter pilot, next time I go out for a job interview," he made a show of bending down to look her in the eye, "I'll be sure to check the flight path with you first, shorty."

Rukia sputtered and reddened in fury.

"Job interview?" the man said, ignoring Rukia's fuming face. "What for?" he asked, steering Ichigo away from her.

"Freighter ship pilot, not that it matters now since the damn thing was blown up and then eaten," Ichigo said, yanking his shoulder from under the man's hand. "It was fucking _eaten_ , by _aliens_. Which I will have to answer for." He realized how crazy the whole thing sounded and ran his fingers through his hair.

"We've already taken care of that," the younger, red-haired man said, loops of hose over his shoulder and various tools shoved in his pockets. He tossed down the hose and grumbled loudly as he looked at the torn and battered ship.

"Your freighter was damaged by a rogue, high velocity meteor that struck the ship with enough force to rupture the engine compartment. You barely escaped with your life and are now recuperating at Karakura General," squeaked a soft voice from behind him. Baffled, Ichigo turned to see a young girl, barely into her teens, at the controls of a towering maintenance hardsuit. She blinked her large eyes before lowering them modestly, her dark hair falling into her face. "Please excuse me."

"If you'll come with me, Ururu and and Jinta have some work to do," the man walked down the steps from the landing pad and stood at the railing. "You too Rukia, let's get something for that head." The girl in the hardsuit lumbered past as they moved out of the way, the heavy footfalls rumbling through the deck.

The man introduced himself as Kisuke Uruhara, head of Rukia's support detail on the Karakura station. Sitting at his desk in his office, he idly toyed with an old fashioned actual wooden cane as Ichigo stood off to the side and Rukia eased herself into a chair.

"Ah, Tessai. Excellent," Kisuke said.

Ichigo turned to see a tall man sporting a thick mustache, muscular arms, and a thin visor over his eyes come through the door bearing a tray of first aid supplies. Ichigo immediately stepped over to it as it was set down.

"Ichigo, right?" Kisuke asked.

"Yes." Ichigo picked several items off the tray and stepped over to Rukia.

"I can do it myself so just leave me alone," she began but cut off as Ichigo knelt next to her, scrutinizing her temple while running his hands under the cleaner then smoothly tipping her head to the side with quick and sure movements, his fingertips grazing her neck and brushing across her cheek. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the same intent, focused look he had in the ship as he stared at the side of her head. She flicked her eyes over to Kisuke. He was watching them with piqued interest from beneath the shade of his hair, a smile quirked on his face.

Rukia found herself frozen in her seat, the sensation of another person in such close proximity was unfamiliar. She felt the pressure of the cleaner and disinfector against her temple, making her wince as a momentary spike of pain shot through her head. It was almost instantly numbed as Ichigo applied a local anesthetic before dabbing a small amount of medical paste on her skin and then smoothing out a single butterfly bandage.

"There, all done. It'll sting for a while but it won't be anything you can't take care of with a simple painkiller."

Rukia felt his fingers slip from her skin, one of them carelessly skimming across her pulse point, as she watched him stand and fold his arms, his scowl firmly back in place. She crossed her own arms and pointedly looked away from him. She'd look quite the petulant child if she berated him for invading her personal space after doing her the favor of cleaning and dressing the side of her head. She settled for glaring at Kisuke, who had apparently brought up the flight recorder data on his desk's screen. She noticed his typical jovial smile slowly fade, replaced by a cold, calculating gaze as he studied the playback from the fight with the Hollow ship. The recording of the plasma explosion lit up the top of his desk and he paused it, his face thrown into sharp contrast by the screen's glare. Rukia watched as Kisuke glanced at Ichigo, his calculating look remaining across his face.

"Ichigo, you said you were out on a job interview when this happened?"

He nodded.

"So you would be between employments at the moment then?"

He nodded again.

"Would you like one?" Kisuke asked, leaning back in his chair and twirling his cane slowly, a smile hitching onto his face.

"What?" Ichigo and Rukia asked in unison.

"I'm offering you a position, here," Kisuke replied, addressing Ichigo's confused tone over Rukia's irate one.

"Urahara, don't forget who actually works for the G-13 and who that interceptor actually belongs to," Rukia warned.

"I'll get to that in a minute," he said, waving her off. "Well Ichigo?"

"Doing what?" Ichigo asked warily.

"What you are apparently very good at, piloting. The _Sode no Shirayuki_ is designed with a pilot seat and a tactical seat for a reason and Rukia has been flying her solo for too long."

"I've been doing just fine flying _my own ship_ on my own!" Rukia said hotly.

"No one's doubting that, but it's pretty obvious that if it wasn't for both of you, neither of you would still be alive right now," Kisuke painfully pointed out. "Now, if you two can get results like this after sitting in the same ship together for thirty seconds," he pointed at the mini-star they had ignited, frozen on the screen with his cane, "What do you think you can manage after thirty minutes? Dare I even say thirty days?" He let the question hang in the air before continuing. "Think about it this way. Rukia, you're trained to be the tactical officer on the ship, that's where you're at your best. You've been splitting your attention and running both posts for too long and if you keep it up you're gonna get yourself killed. Ichigo, you need a job, you're a fine pilot, a little rough around the edges but you're a natural. Sure, it's dangerous, it's combat flying after all," Urahara said with a shrug and minor gesture of his hand, "But really, after what I've seen you're not going to have any problems."

Ichigo opened his mouth to ask a question but Kisuke stopped him. "If you don't work out, change your mind, or refuse... well there's always Rukia's airlock."

Ichigo clamped his mouth shut. He thought back to the interviewer, the ship the Hollow had sliced apart, those coils that had snaked out and began tearing into the wreckage. He felt his heart freeze in his chest as he realized there was something familiar about it. He recoiled from the memory but it came anyway, tearing its way through his mind with a uncontrollable violence. The image of torn apart ships, broken and motionless against the endless expanse of glittering, frozen rocks. Lifeless bodies, ship and human, floating through the shining dark. And a nebulous, cold and inhuman shape, moving out beyond what he could see, blacker than the night of space.

"Do we have a deal?" Urahara asked.

Instead of answering him, Ichigo walked over to stand in front of Rukia. She was rubbing the kinks out of her neck but stopped, her blue-violet eyes snapping up to his as he approached. He crossed his arms and looked back at the frozen display screen on the desk, then glanced back, meeting her eyes. "I'd like to pilot your ship for you, if that's alright." His voice was hard, like ice.

Rukia stood, tilted her head marginally as if examining him and nodded slightly. "I think that could work."

Ichigo's scowl may have softened marginally as he held a hand out to her. "Well then, looks like we'll be working together, I'm Ichigo Kurosaki."

She flicked her eyes down to his hand. She took a breath and reminded herself that there have been more Hollows lately, they have been bigger and meaner, and she was running herself ragged trying to keep up with them. He had asked her to be her pilot, and she had accepted. Steeling herself with that realization, she reached up and shook his hand. "I'm Rukia Kuchiki."

"Excellent," Kisuke smiled, leading Ichigo out of the office by the shoulder, "Be here tomorrow, bright and early!" Closing the door, he turned and leveled an even look at Rukia.

"What?" she said, twisting the wrist fasteners on her gloves and pulling them off. Doubts and uncertainty were creeping into her mind. All she wanted to do was crawl into a warm shower and soothe her aching muscles.

"What yourself?" he asked back.

"Brand new pilot, based purely on thirty seconds worth of combat flying?" Rukia mused. "Plus I have a head wound, what in the world was I thinking?"

Ignoring her barbed question, he asked, "How do you feel about him?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"Sure it does, first impressions are important. Think about that while I bring this up. I noticed something you were too busy to see, don't listen, just watch," Kisuke said as he flicked his fingers across the desk surface. The image of the ship's nose camera, sliding across the backdrop of stars, came up on the screen, volume muted. The video from the cockpit camera came up below it, showing Ichigo dance his fingers across the surface of the controls while Rukia narrowed her focus on the targeting array. Kisuke put the playback on slow while the two of them work harmoniously for a few seconds, Ichigo moving the ship as easily as he would his own arm, giving her a perfect firing angle to the transport's engine bay. Rukia remembered, everything had clicked into place.

"See anything out of the ordinary here?" Kisuke asked, pausing the screen.

Rukia frowned and studied the image. "If you're trying to lead me somewhere, I'm not following."

Kisuke chuckled and pointed to Ichigo's hands. "He's not touching the control boards, his fingers are tapping out above them."

"So? He was using his neural link, I would think he would have to have a decent one being the pilot he is. It's probably what let him fly the _Sod_ _e_ _no Shirayuki_ in the first place."

"Think again, Rukia," he said as he tapped out a command, bringing up a smaller window at the edge of the screen. It displayed information about Ichigo's neural link as well as bandwidth usage between it and the ship's computers.

"Usage, zero percent? And what the hell, this model is old, way old. That's got to be an error," Rukia said.

"Your hitchhiker turned fighter pilot was interfacing directly with your ship."

"But only... there's no way he could have been trained to do that. _I_ can't even do that."

"Precisely, he can do it naturally, how many other captains can say the same thing? You know yourself know what it takes to just get basic flight controls to work, and he had access to every system onboard as soon as he sat down."

Speechless for a moment, Rukia composed herself with a shake. "Fine, he's a good pilot, so what?" she said.

"He's not just a good pilot," Kisuke said, "Not to you and not to me."

Rukia quirked a puzzled brow at him.

"A talent like this is a rare find, and we have an opportunity here that just doesn't come along every day," Kisuke said as he rolled his cane around his fingers. "If the _Sod_ _e_ _no Shirayuki_ is going to have you back at her tactical station, doesn't she deserve a pilot worthy of her?"

"And I suppose the fact that we'd be training a pilot outside of sanctioned G-13 approval isn't exactly tearing you up emotionally," Rukia said.

"I heard a 'we' in there. That sounds a lot like tacit acknowledgment, Rukia."

Rukia crossed arms and turned back to stare at the display on his desk. She grimly nodded.

"Good, it's time you had a partner again."

The word crashed through her ears and drained the blood from her face. A pool of ice water welled up in her stomach and suddenly, a shower was the furthest thing from her mind.

"I know you're not to happy to hear that word again, but you've had enough time solo. Working with someone else will be good for you, and the mission," he added. Kisuke stood and said no more, slipping around to sit back in his comfortable chair.

Rukia sighed and tossed her gloves down onto the surface of the desk. She rubbed her eyes and smoothed out her hair, wincing slightly as it tugged the bandage. All the little aches and bruises from the beating she had taken in the fight were starting to add up on top of the gash on the side of her head. She glanced back at the screen, Ichigo and herself frozen at the controls of the ship. For a moment, she pictured him with black hair instead of orange and she instantly buried it, shaking herself away from the image. She stood and thumbed the display off, snatched up her gloves and fled the room. If he was going to be her new partner, she told herself icily, then he was going to have to live up to the standards she had come to expect from her previous one. She would not tolerate anything less.

There in the dark, Urahara thumbed the display back on, adding another display next to Ichigo's neural link usage readout. His eyes narrowed as he superimposed the two windows, focusing on Rukia's neural link bandwidth. 'Zero Percent' blinked back at him from both monitors during those few seconds. Urahara's finger tapped a rhythm on his cane as he studied the readouts, a sad sound humming from his lips. He pressed a button on his cane and the display closed, all the the data collected from the ship swiftly erased.


	5. Ferrorfluid Dynamics

Ichigo rode the transit system to the shipping company offices where he had left his bike and was soon zipping his way back to the _Masaki_ along the main circuit through the station. Pulling into a space, his mind reviewing the day's sequence of events, he didn't immediately register his name being called out.

"Ichigo!"

He looked over to see his two sisters at the railing outside the clinic. Yuzu waving happily and Karin staring down at him, arms crossed and a scrutinizing look on her face.

"What is it?" he asked, slightly more irritation in his voice than he intended.

"What's with the softsuit?" Karin asked.

"There was a problem at my interview," he replied, realizing he was still indeed wearing the ship's softsuit.

"So you didn't get the job," Karin surmised, arching an eyebrow.

Ichigo crested the landing, standing a full head and shoulders over his sisters. "I didn't get _that_ job, no. I did manage to get a different one though." He slipped in through the main airlock before Karin or Yuzu could respond.

They caught up to him in the ship's media room. Ichigo was kicking off the suit's sealed boots while tugging at the fasteners along the back, attempting to free himself of the ill-fitting thing. Managing to extricate his arms and torso, Ichigo smoothed out his rumpled shirt before sitting and beginning to push at the bunched suit material tangled about his legs.

"You got a different job than the one you went on an interview for?" Yuzu asked, slightly perplexed. "Did they not need a pilot after all?"

"Someone else saw me fly and offered me a job," Ichigo replied.

"A better job?" Karin asked.

Ichigo paused, weighing the idea of space hauler pilot to the idea of flying the _Sode no Shirayuki_. "Yeah, probably better."

"What kind of ship?" Yuzu asked, sitting on the couch.

"Small two-seater. I'll be flying it and this other girl-"

"Girl?" Karin interrupted.

"You're actually going to fly with a partner?" Yuzu gasped.

"But you hate people," Karin said.

"I don't hate people!" Ichigo defended.

"You hate _most_ people," Karin said, nonplussed. She stuck her chin onto her fist and eyed him, as if expecting other wild and unpredictable behavior.

"And she's not my partner," Ichigo said to Yuzu.

Karin arched her eyebrows at him. "Oh? You're going to fly a 2-seat spaceship, _together_. You're the pilot and she's something else, which means you have to work _together_. And that usually means you're going to have to communicate, _together_. And 2-seat spaceships are small, so you're going to be stuck close _together!_ "

"You think they'll end up... _together?_ " Yuzu asked Karin, ignoring Ichigo's reddening face.

"Both of you need to shut up."

"Don't speak to your sisters like that!" Isshin said as he sprang from the hall onto the back of Ichigo's chair. He was about to grab a fistful of Ichigo's orange hair when his son pitched forward, rolling out of the chair and away from him.

"Crazy old man!" Ichigo said as he hooked his toe around the bottom edge of the front of the recliner, yanking out the footrest and throwing his father off as it leaned backwards. "All you people need to get off my case!"

Isshin gripped the top of the reclined seat and pulled his head above it to look at his son. "Good reflexes!"

"Dad, Ichi-nii got a new job," Yuzu said.

Isshin vaulted over the chair and landed in the seat, a surprised and pained look on his face. "Oh? Is this true Ichigo?"

"Yeah, looking for a place on the station too," Ichigo replied, bundling up the softsuit and stuffing it under his arm.

"Why?" Isshin asked seriously, standing from the chair. His tone forced Ichigo to pause as he turned.

Ichigo locked eyes with his father for a moment, his face hard and brows knitted, before softening and offering a half smile. "Just to give people some more room around here. It was a little cramped even before the clinic opened back up."

His father eyed him speculatively for a moment longer before cracking into a wide grin. "Well, you won't be too far away for Kurosaki Family Movie Night will you! It'll be like you never left!"

"Except we won't have to stare at his frowny face all the time," Karin mumbled.

"Can I get my own place too?" Yuzu chirped plaintively.

"Of course not! I need you here at the clinic, or who will help the patients?" Isshin balked.

"I don't know, maybe the doctor," Karin said offhandedly.

Ichigo smirked as he left the banter of his father and sisters behind. Closing the door to his cabin, he let his smile fade as he tossed the softsuit down on the bunk, scratching his chin and staring at it. The interviewer he was with had died not more than two meters away from him, instantly vaporized by that Hollow's energy beam. The only thing left of that ship was the softsuit. Even the truth of what happened was gone, apparently erased by Rukia's people. Ichigo eased into the seat at his desk and continued to stare at the softsuit.

"What have I gotten myself into?"

Ichigo found himself wondering the same thing the next day as he pulled his bike up to the loading doors of the old ore processing plant, 'Uruhara Developments' written on a simple faded display near the entrance. He swung his leg over and pulled the helmet off his head, wondering if he should knock. The lower levels were deserted this early in the morning and rarely occupied even at peak hours as, nowadays, most ore processing was done on factory and refining ships instead of directly on the station. Ichigo shuddered as he recalled piloting the _Masaki_ from one to another when they were traveling the rim. Factory ships didn't have to meet the same safety requirements and codes as station plants, so they were cheaper to operate, and that was always the bottom line. Ichigo snapped out of his reverie as the door creaked open and a figure slipped out.

"Ururu, right?" Ichigo asked, tucking the helmet under his arm.

"Yes," she replied timidly, "Please come with me."

Ichigo nodded and pushed the bike after her as she turned and went back inside. The door slid shut behind him as he locked the bike in place out of the way. When he turned back he found Ururu standing before him.

"Mister Uruhara is not in yet, neither is Miss Kuchiki. Jinta and I are still repairing the _Sod_ _e_ _no Shirayuki_. Mister Uruhara has material for you to review on the systems and features of the ship in the office." She held out a palm towards the stairs leading up to Kisuke's office.

"If it's all the same I'd rather help you out with the ship," Ichigo said, slipping his jacket off. "I can get to know her better that way." Ichigo smiled away her wordless protest. "I'll review the material while the ship is being repaired."

The two of them headed for the far end of the main facility where Rukia's interceptor hung suspended from the service berth, arcs of blue-white sparks occasionally cascading down from the undercarriage. Jinta walked out from underneath the ship pushing a torn piece of fuselage.

"Here to help, new guy?" Jinta asked, dusting off his hands. "Then start with the cowling over what's left of the starboard engine. We're going to need to put an entire new drive and coupler in there so that whole mess has to come out."

Ichigo nodded and set immediately to work, climbing up to the upper level of the berth and heading for the engine. Rubbing his face, he crouched down and looked closely at the burned and twisted remnants of metal and ceramic, mentally reconstructing them to see how they all fit together. Satisfied after a few moments, Ichigo selected a few tools from the service bay and strode confidently over to engine housing.

Later that morning as Rukia arrived, she found Jinta and Ururu standing off to the side talking quietly to one another.

"It was a mean thing to do Jinta," Ururu admonished.

"Hey, trial by fire. If he can't figure it out on his own then he's not good enough to fly her."

"I don't recall you being an expert on your first day," Ururu said quietly.

"What's going on?" Rukia asked, walking up behind the two of them.

Ururu motioned over to the service berth. "Jinta told Mister Kurosaki to decouple and remove the starboard side engine and drive components in order to be replaced. By himself."

"But he won't know how to do that, the ship uses a... the entire fuselage is..." Rukia started, glaring at Jinta. "He can't do it! He'll do more damage than good!"

"Yeah, like that's possible. Have you seen what happened to her? Besides," Jinta crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, throwing his gaze back to the ship. "If he's half as competent as Kisuke seems to think he is, he won't cause any damage that I can't fix."

"That's your goal, let him screw up so you can go in and fix it?" Ururu asked. "That's very irresponsible Jinta."

"I'm going to put a stop to this, he's probably completely confused as to how the fuselage...," Rukia looked up to where Ichigo stood. Ichigo stepped back to tap out a sequence on the service bay control panel. A series of mechanical whirring noises and heavy clunks filled the air, the graceful lines of the ship's remaining white paneling split along hidden seams and slid away, exposing the twin engine bays. Mouth slightly agape, she watched him move back into the light wearing a power loader frame.

"Morning," Ichigo said, his back to her. He reached up to the engine service point connections and smoothly decoupled what remained of the drive conduit.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Rukia asked by way of greeting. "This ship has very sophisticated engines," she added.

"Yeah, they use a reactive positron suspension matrix," Ichigo said, activating the loader frame. It hummed to life across his shoulders and down his back. "It's experimental, last I read. Not exactly sophisticated though, just powerful." He reached up and gritted his teeth, clenching the hands of the loader frame onto the mounting grips and easing the engine from its housing. Walking slowly, he slid the entire mass of it out the back of the ship. Ichigo was left standing beneath it, holding several tons of stellar interceptor engine aloft as if it weighed barely anything.

Carefully, he carried the huge cylindrical engine towards the service cradle. Taking measured steps, he brought the end of the engine in line with the frame and began getting ready to set it down.

"Wait! You can't put that thing on there!" Rukia shouted, realizing what he was about to do.

Ichigo grunted as he froze, steadying the huge engine above him. The frame hummed and whirred, powerful servos along the arms and down his legs working on controlling the massive weight. "What's the problem?"

"You can't put the engine on there, the magnetic fields from the cradle will screw up the suspension matrix. It'll ruin whatever's left that still working."

"Normally yeah, but the drive system has contaminated it with ferrofluid. Magnets," he slid the engine smoothly into the frame, grunting slightly from the effort, "Are gonna solve your problem for you." The engine came to a rest in the cradle, the rows of superconducting magnets letting it settle down onto the bearing points. Ichigo stepped back away from it, unlatching the harness and slipping his arms from the frame's gauntlets.

"See?" Ichigo stepped out of the frame's boots and walked over to the drive interface coupler. He levered open the matrix while leaving a single magnet activated and held a large container above it. A brownish, viscous goop oozed from inside the reaction chamber, swirling and undulating as it moved from suspended gas to liquid across the magnetic field and into the container.

"How is the suspension matrix still intact?" Rukia asked, watching him close up the drive chamber.

"This crap polarized your chamber for you," he said, switching off the magnet and lifting the goop filled basin. "The drive chamber itself is still good, about the only thing left that is, just make sure the matrix isn't polarized when you start pumping positrons through it."

"Nice work," Kisuke said, clapping a few times as he approached, his cane hooked over his arm. "Wouldn't you say so Rukia?"

She didn't answer, instead choosing to stare frostily at intricate interior of the now vacant engine bay. She couldn't help but feel slightly protective of her ship, especially after watching Ichigo calmly and expertly decouple and remove one of the most sensitive components on the _Sod_ _e_ _no Shirayuki_. "Let's just work on getting her spaceworthy again," she said, turning away.

As the day progressed Ichigo came to understand the somewhat complicated relationship Kisuke had with the G-13. While Uruhara's hangar received supplies for the ship from the colonial navy special forces, it was Rukia Kuchiki who was the only one actually employed by the G-13. Additionally, they did not typically receive the parts and supplies requested or in sufficient quantities. Ever resourceful, Kisuke kept the hangar stocked through combinations of black market exchanges and a modestly lucrative cover business in goods and materials shipping. While repairs on the ship progressed at a decent pace, Ichigo noted that every damaged part removed was closely examined and anything still functioning or repairable was indexed and stored while whatever was not was set aside to be dismantled, melted and re-fabricated. It was remarkably efficient and very little went to actual waste.

By the end of the week what could be immediately repaired or replaced on the ship was finished. The little that remained required components that were difficult to obtain and would take several more days to procure, even through Kisuke's methods. In the growing time he had between service tasks, Ichigo had taken to climbing up to the top level of the service berth holding the ship and would sit against the console, eat his lunch and flick through the documentation Kisuke had compiled for him.

It was at the end of that first week when Rukia, sitting at the tactical station in the cockpit had looked up and caught sight of him through the canopy. They had been so busy repairing the ship that they hadn't had much time to talk. Now that repairs were nearing completion she felt compelled to get to know him better. As gifted as he was at spacecraft engineering, she still didn't know much about who he was as a person. She closed her connection to the ship's status readings and hopped down from the cockpit, heading over to the berth service ladder and climbing up to his level.

He mumbled a greeting, halfheartedly waving his sandwich in her direction as she sat down on the platform next to him. He saw her hold up her hand, point to the back of it and nod her head to the data store clipped to the back of his own. He shrugged in a noncommittal fashion, obligingly opening a single public short range connection and accepting her security token without bothering to examine it.

Rukia blinked as dozens of glowing displays blossomed into her vision, all floating in mid-air around them. While Kisuke had encrypted large portions of some of the more sensitive aspects of the ship, Rukia could see that nearly all basic flight and system information was available. Covering these, Ichigo had been making notations and observations, cross-referencing system capabilities and performing rough calculations on their combinations. Scratch displays had been pushed aside, all covered with velocity and acceleration to stress ratio equations and plots of spatial combat flight patterns. Some even contained rough design modifications.

"Here I was thinking you made it up as you went along," Rukia said, drawing one of the displays closer to read his notes.

"When I'm out of options, sure," Ichigo replied. "But if I can figure out how something worked afterwards, maybe try to make it work better next time, I get a new option."

"Like using your engine wash as a weapon?"

"I try to make the best use of the tools I have at my disposal," he replied, eyes still fixed on his current display.

"Most people would be content with the fact that something worked the first time," she said as the silence began to stretch.

"I don't have that luxury."

"Why not?"

"Because not everything works the first time, and out there, if something's not working then it can easily end up killing you."

"Uh huh," Rukia said, a smirk on her face, "It must be pretty dangerous flying a medical ship or a freighter. I wouldn't know much about that, I mean I only fly a _fighter_ so I don't kno..."

"That's right," he cut her off mid-sentence, a growing edge to his voice. "You _fly_ a ship, but you don't pilot it. You zip around a few light minutes from the station, within comm range, within fucking visual range, and you think your work is the most dangerous thing in the system. Out there on the rim, even between the outer orbits, there's no one to help you for days if any one thing goes wrong. Radiation shielding fails and you get cooked alive, deflector system goes down and anything bigger than a molecule will punch a hole in your hull, the O2 scrubbers get the gas mix wrong and you'll pass out and suffocate, lose attitude control and half a degree off system-level will send you out of the disc with no way back." Ichigo rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, composing himself. "I'm a pilot, it's my job to get people where they need to go, and my responsibility to handle getting there safely."

If he thought she would cringe and quail at his diatribe of how dangerous space was, he was wrong. After all, she had goaded him into defining what he thought his role was. Rukia simply nodded in understanding, her opinion of him elevating. "That's pretty clear, since you seem dedicated to what you do," she said indicating all the floating annotated displays.

"I have to be on top of my game," he said.

"Why?" Even she was surprised at the earnest note in her voice.

Ichigo paused, his fingers freezing over the display he was examining. _Otherwise people die_. His scowl deepened as he thought not about what she asked but what she meant, painful memories dredged up to the surface by a single word. He was spared from answering as Kisuke walked into a pool of light on the bottom floor of the service bay, waving up at them with his cane.

"Hey, Doc and Snow White, I've got some other business to take care of. You guys are done for the day," he called up to them.

"'Doc'?" Ichigo said to Rukia.

She tapped at her temple in answer, a thin scar the only evidence of the gash he had dressed. "It could be worse," she whispered, "You could be 'Grumpy'."

Ichigo descended the service ladder down to the ground floor and made his way over to his parked hoverbike. Helmet in hand, he was about to push it back out the main doorway when he noticed Uruhara standing in his way.

"I've got something for you," Kisuke said, holding up his cane. He tapped a button on the side and 'Account deposit requested - Authorize?' flickered into Ichigo's field of vision, hovering above Kisuke's cane.

"What's that?" Ichigo asked.

"An advance. You need to get yourself off that ship and into a place where you won't have to explain your coming and going."

"I haven't earned it yet," Ichigo replied.

"You will soon enough, trust me," Uruhara said.

Ichigo set his mouth in a firm line, his brows set deep in their usual scowl. He paused slightly, staring at Uruhara's blithely smiling face, before flicking his finger at the accept indicator. "Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me."

"You want to come back later for dinner? Tessai is cooking," Kisuke asked as Ichigo angled the bike around him.

"No thanks, I've got to go look for apartments," Ichigo replied. Kisuke said something in return but Ichigo had already slid the helmet down over his ears. He swung his leg over the bike and let the engine roar to life. Before long he was zipping down the main transit lane trying to think of someplace he could use the station network without being disturbed.

Mizuro's Bar was moderately occupied but the noise level was less than Ichigo expected as he walked in. Mizuro spotted him walking in and, after giving him a friendly wave, set a large glass of ice water down on the bar for him. Grateful, Ichigo snatched it up and made his way to a darker corner of the bar. Sipping, Ichigo eased into a booth, his muscles aching from dismantling and repairing Rukia's ship all week. Thinking of the ship, his mind wandered over to her owner and Ichigo found himself wondering what Rukia did away from the hangar. She had worked just as hard as he had, single-handedly removing and replacing the cowling and fuselage along the top of the ship. She was probably aching just as bad as he was, Ichigo surmised. He absentmindedly rubbed the muscles along his shoulders and Ichigo told himself he'd have to soak it out when he got back to the ship. Unbidden, the image of Rukia soaking in a steaming tub swam to the front of his mind and Ichigo nearly choked on his water, a piece of ice lodging in his throat. Ichigo tried push the thought away but it was firmly in place. In his mind's eye, he watched her lift a leg above the surface of the water, soap suds sliding down the contours of her calf and thigh.

Rubbing his face, Ichigo stood from the seat and made his way over to the bank of network terminals. He forced himself to focus on the steps to lease a connection to the station's network and threw himself into the search for new apartments, doing what he could to distract himself away from thinking about his partner naked, wet and covered in soapy bubbles.

* * *

Rukia closed the door to her apartment and leaned heavily against it, every part of her aching. She had declined Uruhara's offer of dinner at the hangar, again, and retreated to the safety of her apartment, bone weary but happy they had accomplished so much work on the ship. To his credit, Ichigo did know his way around the service bay and he took his job as pilot as seriously as anyone she'd seen, possibly more. Maybe he would work out after all, she mused.

Rukia made her way deeper into her apartment, not bothering to turn on any lights as she walked past the small kitchen area, kicking her boots off as she went. She was alone, a rarity at her place. Like nearly everyone on the station, she had a roommate whose schedule was offset by twelve hours under the ideal scenario that the apartment never go unoccupied for very long. That way two or more residents could share a living space that would ordinarily only be big enough for a single person.

She began stripping off her work clothes as she padded across the floor, balling up the entire mess and dumping it all in the basket in the small closet, shutting it with a snap. Standing there in the dark she could imagine her apartment was much bigger than the closet it seemed like it was. She closed her eyes and could remember her childhood growing up on one of the moons of Junrinan, the wind through her hair and the rain on her skin. It had been a long time since she had felt the rain, her adopted family would never have permitted such a thing and her current employment would keep her spaced for the foreseeable future. She took a deep breath, the recycled air bringing her back to reality. Working in the hangar all day down in the processing sector of the station and then taking public transit home could take its toll on her senses. It was perhaps the only drawback to the nearly perfect cover.

She flicked the lights on in the bathroom and started the shower, slipped out of her underwear and stepped under the warm water. She closed her eyes and put her head against her arm, her body leaning heavily against the shower wall. Sighing as the warm water eased her sore muscles, Rukia began mentally reviewing what they still needed for the ship. The gentle water, warm air and relief as the tension eased from her body all combined to muddle her thoughts as she went through the motions of washing her hair. Half-asleep but scrubbed clean, Rukia tried remembering what exactly remained broken on the engine. Ichigo was telling her he could solve her problems with a bucket. She laughed, a bucket. She turned off the water and blearily toweled herself off, clumsily wrapping the fluffy white material around herself and shuffling into the darkness towards her bed.

Collapsing, she slithered out of her towel and under the sheets, listening to Ichigo tell her about magnets as he walked towards her. She thought about his muscles standing taut as he slowly slid the huge column of engine out of the drive bay's clutching manifolds. Her precious ship spread opened wide, eager and waiting.

Rukia's eyes snapped open. Her slightly pink cheeks quickly drained of color as she sat up and blinked in the darkness. She gathered the sheets around her and clutched them to her chest, leaned over and turned on the light by her bedside. Wincing as her eyes adjusted, Rukia ran a hand through her dark hair and tried to even her breathing.

"I'm tired, sore, not thinking straight, and I haven't eaten anything, that's all. That must be it." Suddenly wide awake, Rukia hurriedly dressed in comfortable pants and a simple shirt and walked over to her kitchen, turning lights on as she went. "Dinner, must have dinner."


	6. Guidance System

Arriving early at the hangar the next morning, Ichigo was greeted by a slightly bleary eyed Jinta. Grumbling darkly that he was there so early, he pushed the doors open wide enough for Ichigo to ease his bike through, then shut them as soon as he was able. "C'mon," Jinta said, heading for Kisuke's office. Inside, they found him asleep on his couch, a striped hat pulled over his eyes and his cane clutched loosely in his hand. Jinta prodded him awake and thumbed at Ichigo over his shoulder before leaving the room. Kisuke pushed his hat up and studied Ichigo from behind his gray-blond hair, all traces of sleepiness gone in seconds.

"Not that I don't appreciate your work ethic, but isn't it a little early to be here?"

"I couldn't sleep," Ichigo said, "I figured I'd work on the ship for a while."

Urahara sat up a bit more and planted the tip of his cane on the floor, his hand dangling across the crook of it. "There really isn't much left to do on the _Sode no Shirayuki_ until we manage to get the new engine parts. However since you're here," he paused, touching a control on his cane's handle. "Rukia? Yes I know... I'm sending Ichigo to get you... You'll meet me at the _Red Princess_... Uh-huh, I got the call I was expecting." He looked back to Ichigo and smiled. "Go meet Rukia at this location, she's having breakfast there as we speak. Pick her up and head to berth FR-two oh two. Since the interceptor is laid up we've got some other flying to do, we shouldn't be off station more than a week."

"A week?" Ichigo's mouth opened involuntarily. "With no notice?"

"You get yourself your own apartment yet?" Urahara deflected. He sighed as Ichigo shook his head. "Don't worry about collecting anything from the _Masaki_ , the ship is already stocked for this little flight. Just go pick up Rukia and she'll fill you in along the way. Oh, and Ichigo, this is how it's gonna be. Notice is something we don't usually get." He tapped a button on the side of his cane and smiled disarmingly.

Ichigo's neural link chimed in his ear and an alert appeared in his vision. Activating it, a display flickered into life showing Rukia's location on the station. Ichigo looked from the display back to Urahara, who was settling down on his couch and pulling the hat back over his eyes. Ichigo's scowl deepened and he turned on his heel, exited the office and went back down to the hangar floor. Sighing, Ichigo pulled his helmet back on and unlocked the bike as he mapped out the best route to the cafe Rukia was at.

* * *

"Hey Rukia, check out the guy that just walked in," the young woman said. Like Rukia, she had a news display up in front of her but was using it an excuse to watch the guys come in instead of reading it. "Oh, he's coming over here," she gasped.

Rukia looked up over the top of her public news display to see Ichigo weaving his way through the cafe patrons. She quickly looked back to her display and pointedly kept her eyes averted as he walked over and stood at their table.

"Morning," Rukia said evenly. "Momo, Ichigo, he's a guy I work with. Ichigo, Momo, my roommate."

"And best friend," Momo admonished. "Good morning Ichigo, won't you join us?"

Ichigo noted the study in contrasts between the two young women. While Rukia sat almost primly on her chair, sipping her coffee and holding her news reader like a shield in front of her, Momo had been reclining next to her, whispering conspiratorially and fidgeting with her own screen. He nodded to her as gallantly as he could as he pulled back a chair to sit down. "Morning. Urahara said to come pick you up," he said without preamble.

"And head to the _Red Princess_ , yes." Rukia nodded once, a single graceful finger sweeping away her news display.

He flicked his finger over the ordering pad and watched the menu blossom into view, crossing his long legs and trying to fix his face into a bland look. His scowl may have softened a fraction.

"Don't you want to get going?" Rukia asked.

"He just sat down, let the guy have a cup of coffee first," Momo said in mock exasperation.

A waiter approached and set a steaming cup of coffee down next to him. Rukia flicked her eyes up to see Ichigo incline his head in mute thanks as the waiter quietly withdrew. Ichigo lifted and blew across the surface of the black liquid, sending swirls of mist up around his face. She watched him sip and wince at the scalding, bitter drink but he resolutely swallowed and took another before setting the cup back down.

"So you work with Rukia?" Momo asked. "What's it like being subcontracted to do asteroid spectroscopic analysis?"

"Uh," Ichigo hesitated, his brows shooting up, "Well, I'm a... new hire."

"Show up early at the office?" Rukia asked, wresting control of the conversation.

"Yeah," Ichigo said after pausing a beat. "I thought I'd get some more work done on that last set of readings."

"It's on hold until the guys from the other agency can get back to us," Rukia smoothly continued for him. "Besides, a new project came in last night."

"And that's why we're taking the _Red Princess_ out?" Ichigo asked, playing along.

"Yes, a number of claims from our parent agency need to be analyzed and the data we've been given is insufficient, we'll be doing our own surveying for a week."

Momo's mouth dropped open. "You're going to sit and stare at rocks for a week? You guys have got to have the most boring jobs on the station."

"It's not all that boring, once in a while you find something really interesting," Ichigo said, his eyes glancing to Rukia's.

She didn't know if he was still playing along but Rukia felt her cheeks begin to warm. She covered it by lifting her cup to her lips and taking another sip, glancing back at him over the rim. He had returned to sipping at his coffee, no significant looks, no stolen glances, not even a sheepish grin. His bright orange hair was ruffled and spiked and his eyebrows were set deep in their natural scowl. Interestingly, they almost imperceptibly relaxed as his drank his coffee, and then instantly hardened again after swallowing. She found herself distracted as she watched the lines of his face and got lost in the careless intensity of his eyes as he picked up his own news reader and skimmed the headlines. Perhaps most treacherously, her mind kept wandering back to her Freudian dreams of the previous night.

"Well, at least I have the place all to myself for a week, you two have fun at work, if that's possible," Momo said as she stood from the table. "It was nice to meet you Ichigo, I'll see you in a week Rukia. Take a hint from Ichigo and find something more interesting to look at other than rocks." She shot a significant glance at Ichigo as she walked behind his chair and fanned herself with her hand as she headed out the door.

Ichigo quirked an eyebrow at Rukia as Momo left the cafe. "Asteroid analysis?"

Rukia sighed as she stared at the door, genuinely saddened. "I don't like lying to her, she's telling the truth when she says she's my best friend and she doesn't even know my real last name. But there's nothing I can do about it, I keep irregular hours, I'm off station for days at a time on a tiny ship, I come home beat up and exhausted. At least she has a predictable schedule."

"Still, she seems like a nice person," Ichigo said.

"Yeah, she doesn't mind it when we're both there," Rukia said, sipping at her cup. "The only real problem is she kicks in her sleep."

Coughing, Ichigo burned his lips and sloshed coffee onto his hand as he jerked his head up. He narrowed his eyes, seeing the demure smile playing at her lips. "I can't tell when you're joking or being serious."

"I'm joking, Momo doesn't kick," Rukia admitted. She lifted her eyes to his, her gaze pinning him with its sudden smoldering heat. "She's a cuddler."

To his credit, Ichigo was ready for the hook but it still caught him squarely upside the imagination. He cleared his throat and took a gulp of scalding coffee before thinking of ordering ice water. Rukia laughed as it arrived, a soft and musical quality to it.

"How do you drink it black?" she asked once Ichigo could return to the conversation.

He shrugged. "I got used to it this way."

She didn't pry, only sipped her own coffee and continued looking at him until he swiveled he eyes to meet hers.

"Urahara said you'd fill me in on what we were really doing," he said.

"No," she shook her head. "It'll have to wait until we're done here."

"I can leave when you're ready," he said, setting down his cup.

"Let's finish our drinks first."

Ichigo sighed and picked back up his cup, looking back at her over the brim as he sipped at it. "In that case, how do you like your coffee?"

"Cream and cinnamon, no sugar."

"Huh," was all he said. Rukia could tell he was marginally surprised, no doubt guessing that she would probably drink one of those whipcreamed, chocolate confections. She was pleasantly surprised to learn Ichigo was something of a coffee aficionado and their conversation meandered down the path of the relative merits of coffee flavoring and brewing methods until they realized their cups were empty. Standing to leave, she paused as Ichigo snatched up her empty cup and handed them to a passing waiter as they made for the door.

Stepping out of the cafe, Rukia took a breath of the station's modest attempt at fresh air. It was still early morning according to the station time, but the air was always the same, slightly stale and tinged with the scent from the recycler scrubber filters. She automatically turned towards the nearby boarding platform for the public transit system but stopped when she realized Ichigo was headed somewhere else. She caught up to him as he was pushing his hovercycle away from a parking gate and out to the transit lane, pulling the helmet off his bike handle as it powered up. He looked back to her as he held out his spare helmet and motioned with his head.

Approaching cautiously, she looked over the large machine. The whole thing rumbled lowly and had the unmistakable look of something built by hand, down to the '15' stitched into the seat. It was low and dark and vaguely menacing looking.

"It's a good thing you wore pants," he said from behind her, settling the helmet down on his head and snapping the visor over his face.

Rukia looked down at her legs and then realized he must've looked at her legs as well, from behind. She snapped her eyes back to his face only to realize he was checking the displays on his bike as he settled down on the seat, still holding out the spare helmet.

"I've, uh... I've never ridden on one of those before," Rukia admitted, taking the helmet and rolling it in her hands.

"Relax, you trust me to fly your precious ship, may as well trust me to drive you around the station."

Sighing, Rukia pulled the helmet down over her jet black locks and snapped it in place. Quirking her mouth, she put her hands on his shoulders and slipped one of her legs over the bike's second seat and did her best to keep their proximity as professional as possible. She wasn't quite tall enough to get all the way onto the bike and was forced to vault slightly to seat herself in place. She made a small noise in her throat as she landed, feeling herself pressed up against his back, the bike rumbling between her legs.

"Here," Ichigo said, taking her hands and putting them on his waist. "And put your feet on those," he said pointing to the foot pegs. As soon as she complied he looked over his shoulder, his scowl still somehow in place. "You ready?"

Rukia nodded mutely and then gripped his waist tighter as she felt the main engine fire up, Ichigo lifting and pivoting the bike out towards the transit lane. The whole of it rumbled loudly until Ichigo sent it hurtling down the mostly empty expressway, the engine smoothing out into a low hum. Peeking out over Ichigo's shoulder, Rukia watched as the station whipped past them, the guide-lights of the transit lane blurring into a softly lit path as they skimmed over the deck of the expressway. The wind tugged gently at the sleeves of her jacket, snaking up her arms and making her shiver. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms tighter around him, tucking them in to keep away from the chill wind. A comm request blipped into existence inside her helmet.

"You alright back there?" he asked, his voice above the low hum of the engine and the muffled sound of the wind.

"Yes, fine. Sorry, I didn't know it was a problem," Rukia said. She hastily withdrew her hands from around him but stopped when she felt him lightly grasp both of them in one of his.

"I didn't say it was a problem," he said. He gave her hands a light squeeze, as if it would lock them in place, before putting his hand back on the handle. "Transit Authority is reporting some traffic on this route, do you know a better way to the berth?"

A small floating display popped in her field of vision mapping out the station interior and a bright line snaking through it. "I usually ride public transport, I don't really know the transit lanes," she admitted. Still willing to try, Rukia pulled the traffic layer down over the display and began tugging the glowing line around to avoid traffic concentrations. Shrugging, she sent it back to Ichigo. Over his shoulder she could see him send it down to one of the fixed displays on the bike's control panel, nod his head, then pull one of the handles and twist the other. The bike roared and tipped to the right, forcing Rukia to grip him around the waist tighter as they shot down a branching lane.

Ichigo eased off the throttle as they skimmed along the smaller but nearly vacant lane, allowing Rukia to relax the tension in her arms a bit more. She unclasped them from around his stomach and let them settle back on his hips. As they traveled, they brushed over the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles hidden beneath the material of his shirt, Rukia allowing them to linger a fraction of a second longer than she strictly needed to.

"What was it you were going to tell me about this thing we're doing with Urahara?" Ichigo asked over the comm.

"Oh, right. He received a coded message from one of his contacts in the G-13. I didn't get to hear it myself, I only know that Urahara had most of the hangar and service bay, including the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , loaded overnight into his own transport, the _Red Princess_."

"Is he expecting trouble?"

"Urahara expects to have tea and a nap," Rukia replied, "But he _plans_ for interstellar war." She watched Ichigo nod in front of her and gun the throttle a bit more. "The official manifest logged with traffic control is that we're hauling engineering supplies. The plan is pretty boring: be gone for a week, rendezvous with his contact, and pick up the parts needed for the engine." Having no reason not to and no room to do otherwise, Rukia allowed herself to relax against Ichigo's back. The sensation of the bike thrumming beneath her, the gentle wind around them, and Ichigo's warmth against her chest served to distract her to the point where she was surprised at how quickly they arrived at the berth of the _Red Princess_.

Ichigo pulled the bike into the nearest parking unit and engaged the lock. Rukia slid from the seat, Ichigo graciously but silently held his arm to steady her as she climbed down, and retracted it the moment she no longer needed it. He swung his own leg over and flicked the controls on the panel. The two of them stepped away from the parking unit as it closed up around the bike, storing it away. At the entrance to the airlock stood Urahara, waiting for them.

"Ah, good. Just in time to get underway," he said, resting his cane across his shoulders and smiling down at them.

"So, are the uh... engineering supplies all loaded?" Ichigo asked, looking out at the transport ship.

"Just waiting on you two," Urahara said. "C'mon, I'll show you aboard."

Ichigo, rubbing a hand through his hair, glanced over at Rukia. While she didn't look annoyed at being relegated to flying a cargo ship, she didn't look excited either. "Well, lead on," he said, indicating the airlock. Urahara smiled and ducked through, followed by Rukia as she shrugged out of her jacket. Ichigo's eyes were drawn immediately to her arms, bare all the way up to her shoulders, and how the snug material of her pressure shirt hugged her body. Ichigo felt his mouth go slightly dry as he watched her slip smoothly through the airlock, all supple curves and lean lines. Her skin was pale and flawless, a glowing alabaster standing in stark contrast to the darkness beyond. Distracted by her fluid motions, the hint of finely toned muscles beneath snow white (ah, that's how she got her call sign) skin, Ichigo had to shake himself before she caught him staring.

Sealing the airlock closed behind him, Ichigo quickly caught up to Rukia and Urahara as they climbed up to the bridge. The crew cabin and bridge were small, almost cramped, but that was typical to most cargo ships. Basic physics dictated that a certain amount of mass required a certain amount of energy to move. Transport ship designers often compressed the crew cabin as much as possible in order to accommodate larger cargo holds.

"Captain on deck," Ururu said, occupying a station on the far side of the bridge.

"Have a seat there Ichigo," Urahara said, sitting himself down at the center console.

"Captain," Ichigo mumbled in acknowledgment, sliding into the seat at the navigation station. He felt the seat and consoles adjusting themselves, the foot and leg controls automatically aligning themselves to accommodate his long frame.

"Loadmaster," Urahara said, pressing a button on his cane.

"Captain?" Jinta replied over the comms on the bridge.

"Is the hold secured?"

"Aye Captain, green light to uncouple."

"Astrometrics?"

"Green light," Rukia said, "All systems are nominal... Captain."

"Engineering?"

"Green light sir," Ururu said quietly, turning in her large chair to face him.

"Well then, Navigation we are clear to uncouple from the station, inform traffic control and begin undocking procedures." With that, Urahara sat back in his seat and pulled his hat down low.

Ichigo acknowledged and brought up the undock command display while informing traffic control of their intent to vacate the berth. Checks passed, umbilicals detached, flight plans loaded, and the _Red Princess_ was finally cleared to decompress the airlock and push away from the station. With a hiss and several clunks echoing through the hull, the _Red Princess_ eased away from the mooring point, directional thrusters gently coaxing the large ship towards the flight path loaded in the navigation display.

"We are free and flying, Captain," Ichigo said, easing the ship into the flow of traffic.

"Nav, adjust course by point oh three degrees," Rukia said, flicking controls across her displays. "Calculated proximity warning detected down our course."

Ichigo corrected and let the massive ship drift through the heavily trafficked space as they moved away, the station shrinking behind them. Smaller ships, luxury yachts, short range cargo haulers, small passenger ships and tourist boats all weaved around the station as they flew on past gargantuan factory ships and capital class transports. An enormous colonial navy carrier dwarfed every other ship around the station as it slowly slid out into the blackness of space. The Karakura Station automated notice appeared on Ichigo's communications display, informing them that they were now out of traffic control's range of responsibility.

"Well Ichigo," Uruhara said, "Take us up to cruising speed, we've got a long flight."

Ichigo affirmed as he cycled up the ships powerful engines. A low hum vibrated through the ship before smoothing out, the _Red Princess_ quickly gaining speed as it flew out into the deep black. Ichigo checked the navigation and ship status readings, making sure everything was set, before clasping his hands behind his head and swiveling a bit in his seat. "Course set and underway, we should reach our first waypoint in five hours."

"Excellent," Urahara said, standing up. "This is really much easier with a full crew," he said as he departed the bridge.


	7. Bee Stung

One of the defining things about space travel is that even cruising along at 40% of light speed, the current manned space vessel velocity record, it still takes a long time to get anywhere. Even longer if you're flying a transport ship loaded with several thousand metric tons of mass. Over time, advancements in reactor capacities and engine output had reduced stellar travel time from months down to a week at the most, but it didn't change the fact that standard viewport display was visually uninteresting. Ichigo got comfortable and leaned back in his seat, tapping his fingers as he stared out at empty blackness and far away stars.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say we weren't moving at all," Ururu said softly.

Rukia tapped out a sequence at her console and the main viewport shimmered before resolving itself again. "That should help."

Gone was the standard viewport display of the unchanging blackness of space around the ship. In its place was a rainbow of billowing colors and soft lights all shooting past the ship at an incredible speed. Enormous columns of red and yellow clouds towered in the distance while they shot over swathes of roiling blue and violet, moving so fast through the fields of color that they were nothing but a blur as they came up close to the ship, gone before the eye could hope to focus on it.

"That's better," Ururu said, "The color system can be so pretty."

"Really makes you feel like you're flying," Rukia said, sitting back at her station and losing herself in the billowing cloudscape as they flew on through the dark.

Ichigo glanced up at the false color overlay of the viewport before looking back down at his consoles. The whole concept of the false color overlay was a holdover from the past, reimplemented on nearly all ship designs for the sole purpose of making stellar travel feel more like planetary travel. Aside from mapping photons from all across the energy spectrum down to just the visible spectrum, it really didn't serve any other purpose.

During the first leg of their journey Ichigo familiarized himself with the controls and features of the _Red Princess_. She was a modified medium range transport ship, customized and fitted with additional systems at the cost of cargo space. Reviewing the internal schematics, Ichigo was just beginning to focus on what appeared to be some kind of specialized airlock along the lateral sides when Urahara came back up onto the bridge.

"What's our status?"

"All systems holding at nominal, current trajectory and speed put us at our final destination in another twelve hours," Rukia said.

"Good, now let's change course."

Rukia, Ichigo, and Ururu all paused to look at Urahara as he sat down at the captain's chair. Nonplussed by their glances, he leaned his cane against the railing, tugged at the brim of his hat and relaxed into the seat.

"New heading, captain?" Ichigo said, turning back to his console and spreading his fingers over the controls. He was so used to dealing with this from his father that it came as no surprise from Urahara.

"Wait, where are we going?" Rukia asked.

"Right now? Nowhere, there isn't anything where we're headed, which is why we need to change course to head in the direction where there is something," he answered.

"We are your crew, Captain," Rukia said, eyes narrowing. "It would be nice if we were informed if this was something more than a basic drag and drop."

"It still is, as far something is being dropped and then getting dragged," he said. Ichigo could hear the warning tone buried beneath his jovial, polite phrasing. He turned back to the front viewscreen and gave Ichigo the new heading, taking them sharply towards a region of the system tucked out of the reach of typical colonial navy patrols.

"If you could cover our previous course with the wide angle, I want all incoming telemetry analyzed carefully," Urahara said to Rukia.

"You think someone's following us?"

"If they are, five hours' worth of travel lead time at this speed should let the sensors pick up any transmissions by now."

"Course set, beginning first adjustment," Ichigo said. The scene out of the front viewport shifted as he began turning the ship to the side. Instead of rushing headlong into the cloudscape they now watched it slide past from one side to the other. Ichigo began firing up the main thrusters, shifting their course from a straight line into a huge, sweeping parabolic arc, using the inertia they had built up from their first course to save on energy output as they turned.

"What's our ETA?" Urahara asked.

"Based on our current course, a little over two hours," Ichigo said, flicking controls across his console.

"Great," Kisuke said. "I'm headed down to the kitchen, anyone with me?"

"I'll come," Ururu said, hopping down from her seat. The two of them left the bridge, leaving Rukia and Ichigo alone.

"Do you mind if I turn off the color screen?" Rukia asked after a moment. "It's giving me a headache, sliding sideways like this."

Ichigo shook his head and the color overlay vanished from the viewport, it immediately returning to simple black dotted with tiny points of white light.

"You and Urahara don't seem to get along," Ichigo said, measuring his tone to see if this was a safe topic.

"We have a... complicated working relationship," Rukia said. "I work for the G-13, he used to, neither of us work for each other, but working together is mutually beneficial."

Ichigo thought she was trying to convince herself rather than him. "A week long transport job helps you how?"

"We're out here for parts for the ship," she answered.

"We're out here to meet Urahara's contact, a meeting he is so concerned about that it required five hours of travel time in a different direction just so we could see if anyone is following us. Do you really think he couldn't just get the engine parts shipped to the hangar back on the station?"

Rukia pondered this while Ichigo leaned back in his seat, studying her. "I'm sure he's got a reason," she finally said, doing an admirable job of keeping the irked frustration out of her voice.

Ichigo made a noise of understanding at her, his scowl lifting momentarily before settling back down. He turned back to his controls as he prepared for the second engine burn. He noted mutely that Rukia had anticipated his course adjustment and found astrometric data already waiting for him on the cross-console panel. The two of them quietly settled into their stations, each absorbed in their respective duties to carry on much of a conversation.

One of the other realities of space travel that is often overlooked by anyone not actively piloting a spaceship is the fact that everything, planets, moons, asteroids, space stations, any place people want to travel to, is in motion. Planetary distance relative to each other is always changing, as is their angle of direction depending on the orbital periods of the origin and destination. Two planets may have adjacent orbits, but that doesn't mean they could be anywhere near each other if you mean to fly from to the other.

It gets more difficult to hit smaller targets like moons or planetesimals at a distance, and courses have to be constantly monitored and corrected to account for gravitational distortion, cometary trail material, bursts of strong radiation or uneven thrust from the engines lasting only fractions of a second, any of which can push a spacecraft off target by thousands of miles. Combine this with the fact that everything is so unimaginably far away that pilots and have to take into account the fact that the light you see from your target across the solar system is coming not from where your target is, but rather from where your target _was_. Attempting to fly to a target five AU away would mean that the light from it would be from forty two minutes ago. If the target travels around the system at a modest thirty miles per second, it would have traveled 75,600 miles in those forty two minutes. No reactor has an unlimited energy supply, no engine can burn forever, and no pilot lasts long in that job if they consistently waste power playing catch up with whatever they were trying to fly to.

Ichigo ran course calculations on their parabolic trajectory while Rukia continued to scan their previous course as Urahara had asked. It was boring but time consuming, the end result being that they arrived at their destination without much opportunity for conversation, all the while nothing had ever shown up on the long range sensors.

The ship came a gradual halt at the location Urahara had requested. Ichigo cycled down the engines and checked the navigation systems twice more before turning around to look at Rukia. She was just as puzzled as he was. She glanced up from her station, their position denoted by a hovering blip in the holographic display above the flattened astrometrics panel. Rukia was spinning the view out further and further, more and more of nothing entering the display.

"Bridge to the captain," Ichigo said, a finger on the comm control. "We have arrived at our destination."

Rukia leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, quirking her mouth at the display. A rumble from her stomach broke the silence.

"Rukia, Ichigo, you are relieved," Urahara said as he walked back onto the bridge, followed by Ururu and Jinta. "Report back after you've eaten something."

Ichigo closed off the ship connection he had running to his neural link and rolled up and out of the sunken pilot's station, ducking his head and slipping past Jinta as the younger man took his place. He watched Urahara settle onto his captain's chair and kick his feet up on the railing. He paused and turned to speak before Urahara interrupted him.

"There's food left in the kitchen from earlier, you two are welcome to it."

"Thanks," was all Ichigo said as he followed Rukia off of the bridge. The gravity on the ship was set to about half of what he was used to. Like Karakura station, the _Masaki_ was always set to standard gravity index 1.0 even though it worked the A-Grav generator harder than it really should be. As a result, walking down the hall to the mess was more like taking long, floating strides. Ichigo glanced over to Rukia as she gracefully moved down the corridor, the long strides doing interesting things to the lines of her legs. When he almost ran his head into the ceiling he realized he was staring and resolutely focused his attention forward. The two of them landed in the kitchen, stretching out their muscles from sitting at their stations for so long.

"They had breakfast, that's what's leftover," Rukia said, peering over the metal counter down into kitchen.

"I don't really feel like another breakfast, do you?" Ichigo said, holding his arms above his head and pressing his palms against the ceiling as he pushed his feet down onto the floor. "Want something for lunch?" he asked, finally feeling a bit more relaxed.

"Sure," Rukia said, watching him slip around the counter and start flicking through the storage index.

"Here," Ichigo said, setting down a pair of drinks and cartons on the counter in front of Rukia. He stepped back around the counter and took a seat next to her, picked up the carton and unclipped the lid. He watched her do the same with a mild sigh.

"Urahara's kitchen is pretty much just cartons," Ichigo said by way of apology.

"Yeah, I know," Rukia said as she removed the lid of her own carton. "Thanks for lunch all the same."

Ichigo nodded in reply and their conversation died off as they ate. Ichigo ended up swiveling around and leaning against the counter, staring out the viewport that ran down the far wall of the mess as he idly poked at the contents of the box.

"I don't usually like staring out into space," Rukia said, glancing over her shoulder to the pin-pricked blackness.

"Make you feel small?" Ichigo asked.

"Shut up," Rukia said crossly.

"Oh relax. Look at it, it would make anyone feel small. It's fucking _space_ , it's huge."

"That's just it though," she said. This time she did turn around to point out the viewport.

"What then?" he asked, sipping at his box of nutrient infused water and making a mild face of disgust.

"It's empty. There's so much _nothing_ out there," she said. "Think about it, the _Red Princess_ is the only... thing, out there for half a light hour. It's just us and a couple of hydrogen atoms for three hundred _million_ miles."

"It's not always this empty," Ichigo commented. "Blame Urahara for that, bringing us out to the ass end of nowhere, barely a light minute from Free Spacer territory."

"Free Spacers aren't all that bad," Rukia said, looking up at him.

"There aren't any more Free Spacers, and Free Spacer territory is pirate territory," Ichigo said, his voice clipped and hard. When she didn't respond Ichigo turned his head to glance at her. Even seated next to him her head only came up to the top of his chest. From the distance in her eyes and the angle of her head he could see she was deep in thought, but the set of her eyebrows and the line of her lips said they weren't happy memories.

"Uh huh, I'll see you later," Rukia said, standing and shaking her black hair back from her face.

Ichigo thought he saw a hardness to her face he hadn't seen before, the set of her jaw, the tilt of her head. She was covering something. She could do it well, she's probably been doing it for a long while. Only someone familiar with the act would be able to spot it, Ichigo noted grimly. It only lasted a fleeting couple of seconds before she was back to her typical all-business self. She nodded to him as she left, polite but not friendly, he noted. She gracefully stepped out of the mess and was gone down the hall in moments. He stared after her, his scowl deepening as he considered what they had said to each other. Free Spacers, huh? He sighed and turned around to stare out the viewport, mentally noting the Free Spacer subject. He paused, realizing he was looking to avoid subjects that would leave Rukia frosty. He stood and mentally told himself to get a grip on this attraction he had for her before it made things awkward between them. Besides, he told himself as he disposed of the remnants of his carton, she was Snow White all right, but he was no prince.

Hours later the five of them were still sitting on the bridge. Ichigo had already run through the entire ship schematics for the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , again, and had committed most of it to memory. He had cached the results of his apartment search to his neural link and was now reclined in the pilot's seat, screens for different apartments spread liberally in the air above him. Since Urahara had gone to such lengths to make sure they weren't followed Ichigo didn't bother asking if he could open a laser link to the station to get updated information.

"So you were lying about where we were going, but not for how long we'd be gone?" Jinta asked, tossing a ball in the air. It spun and arched lazily in the half gravity, as if it was only marginally interested in falling back down.

"We're lucky we're not out here for two weeks," Urahara said, good-naturedly ignoring Jinta's dark muttering.

Urahara set up a bridge watch rotation and then ordered everyone to get some downtime while he remained, opening communications and sensor controls on his console. Ichigo had made it as far the hatch leading off the bridge when he heard the comm system give a warning chirp. He glanced over his shoulder as Urahara sat bolt upright, quickly jabbing at the comms panel and expanding the signal. Rukia had apparently heard the chirp too and she lithely slipped past Ichigo's lanky frame and stepped back up on the bridge. Ichigo followed, looking down at the comms panel over Urahara's shoulder.

"Telemetry coming in now, we'll have designation and TA any second," Rukia said, sitting down at her station.

"Don't bother with threat assessment, it's the _Sparrow Bee_ ," Urahara said, a widening grin on his face. "Hmm," he said, the grin vanishing as the standard comm request dropped from the system only to replaced by "Alert 1: Priority Request."

"She's in trouble," Ichigo said, moving back to the pilot's station.

"Rukia, active scan," Urahara said, "All crew to stations."

Rukia swung the tightbeam around to the incoming ship and configured the receiver to analyze the reflection. "Ichigo's right, I'm getting silhouette distortion. The system is confirming it's the _Sparrow Bee_ but she's been hit and trailing particulates."

"This is the _Red Princess_ to the _Sparrow Bee_ ," Urahara said, "Can you give us a status report?"

There was a burst of static over the comms, the only intelligible word being "Kisuke" said in a woman's labored, coughing breath.

"Cycling up engines, course set for intercept," Ichigo said, feeling the roar of engines thrum through the ship. The stars all slid to the side as he opened the directional thrusters to full, reorienting the nose to point towards the incoming signal.

"Jinta, Ururu, secondary stations," Urahara said.

"Yes Captain," Ururu said in a small voice. She and Jinta both sped from bridge, disappearing through the back hatch.

"Any other contacts Rukia?" Urahara asked.

"Can't say for sure, there might be a pursuing craft in the _Sparrow Bee's_ shadow, I've got a relay probe prepped and ready."

"Launch the probe and keep it painted with the secondary tightbeam. If it sees anything, I want to know."

"Aye Captain," Rukia replied. There was a whirring sound followed by a muffled whoosh as the probe sped away, affording their sensor systems two points to gather data from.

"Visual range," Ichigo said. Everyone turned to the front viewport as the magnification system locked onto the incoming ship and bracketed it with a glowing green reticle. The view zoomed in to show a small ship aimed directly at them, the rear quarterpanel burned and shredded while a plume of burning oxygen spread from behind it. A flash of light flared across the viewport, throwing the little ship into shadow before it raked along one of the wing manifolds, boiling away the ship's metal skin.

"Shit, their oh-two recyclers are hit, it's burning through their life support," Ichigo said.

A klaxon began sounding as all the panels lit to red. "Captain, enemy contact!" Rukia shouted "Hollow signature confirmed." The center display console shimmered and colored blips appeared hovering above it, solid green for the _Red Princess_ , blinking green for the _Sparrow Bee_ followed by a single angry red dot labeled EC1.

"Continue on course," Urahara said to Ichigo. "Jinta, Ururu, you have weapons free."

"Weapons free? On a transport?" Ichigo said.

"Focus on flying, pilot. Get us between E.C. One and the _Sparrow Bee_."

"Twenty seconds," Ichigo said, his fingers flying over the consoles. It was then he noticed the _Red Princes_ status display. The side paneled airlocks had opened, weapon platforms rotating out and swinging to bear on the target. Ichigo seized an idea and mashed his finger to comm. " _Sparrow Bee_ , _Sparrow Bee_ this is the _Red Princess_. If you can hear me, continue on your current trajectory. I repeat: Hold. Current. Trajectory."

"Tell me you know what you're doing," Rukia said as Ichigo set the ship on a collision course with the _Sparrow Bee_.

"I know what I'm doing." Ichigo fired the main engines to full burn before cutting their output to zero. Fingers splayed across manual directional thruster controls, Ichigo stared hard at the incoming blip moving fast towards them. As the nose of the _Sparrow Bee_ rapidly loomed in the main viewport, proximity alert alarms began sounding across the bridge. Ichigo waited until the last possible second before surging the oppositional directional thrusters with power, sending the ship in a tightly controlled flip, the _Sparrow Bee_ rushing past them as Ichigo made the _Red Princess_ pirouette on her nose with a degree of agility the ship engineers would've balked at. If he had been looking out the viewport, he probably could have seen a women's rather surprised face looking back at them as they brushed past each other, the ships coming within meters of each other. Ichigo brought the ship out of her spinning flip broadside, sitting between the _Sparrow Bee_ and the enemy contact, weapon platforms pointed squarely at the inbound hostile.

"Firing solution, Captain. I suggest you light him on fire."

"Noted pilot," Urahara said, remaining calm and composed. "Jinta and Ururu, fire at will."

At his command the side viewport was lit by a dozen rushing streaks of white light, missiles streaking from one of the weapon platforms and arcing out into the night. A high pitched, thready whine rose throughout the ship and then silenced as thick pulse of blue-white light shot out to strike the enemy ship. They watched the Hollow ship wobble heavily as it tried to correct, the particle beam shearing into its leading edges while the swarm of missiles slammed hard into its side.

"Rukia, get down to the cargohold and take up the loadmaster station, bring the _Sparrow Bee_ aboard," Urahara ordered. Rukia unbuckled and vaulted out of her station in one smooth motion, slipping down the rear hatch to the cavernous hold in seconds. "Target status?" he asked Ichigo.

Ichigo brought sensor systems up on a panel next to the navigation console. "E.C. One is correcting, looks like it's coming around to get another shot at the _Sparrow Bee_."

Sparks of yellow light flashed on the tips of the Hollow ship's wings, thin beams of bright energy slicing at the weapon platforms on the sides of the _Red Princess_.

"Correction Captain, enemy contact is targeting us," Ichigo noted dryly.

"The weapon airlocks are heavily armored," Urahara said. "If he's trying to disarm us he'll have a rough time of it." The two of them sat there in tense silence and watched another volley of spiraling missiles flash out towards the target while twin beams of yellow energy sliced back at them.

After what seemed like an eternity, Rukia's voice came over the comm. "Captain, the _Sparrow Bee_ has been secured."

"Pilot status?" he asked.

"Minor injuries," Rukia replied.

"Time for a tactical withdrawl Ichigo," Urahara said, smiling.

Ichigo had the engines ready and at his word, spun them up to full burn. He swung the ship around and pushed the throttle to full, sending an enormous plume of engine wash out behind them. The force from the engines against the mass of the ship made her creak and groan as she was pushed quickly to cruising speed.

"Rukia and Ururu, return to the bridge," Urahara said. He poked a control on his chair and the center console shifted to show their position and speed relative to the enemy contact. The distance between the two of them widened considerably as they rocketed away, but it stopped growing as the Hollow came racing after them.

There was a sudden and loud burst of static over the comms. Wincing, Urahara reached over to turn it off but he froze as it resolved into a roaring, oily squeal. The voice, it definitely was a voice, raged and shrieked over the comm until Urahara silenced it with the push of a button. Ichigo glanced over his shoulder to see his face, pale and concerned beneath his hat.

The sensor display began flashing and blared another warning. On the fringe of the center console display two more red blips came streaking towards them. Ichigo quickly brought the sensor readings into the navigation system, plotting out their course and computing time to intercept. "Two more hostile contacts Captain, time to intercept, eighty six seconds."

"Adjust course, take us into Free Spacer territory," Kisuke said, watching the main sensor screen. The ship abruptly veered to the side, the three red blips on the screen arrayed out behind them but were slowly gaining. Ichigo cursed as bursts of laser fire flickered past them, forcing him to pull the ship further towards the outer orbits.

"Jinta, think you can hit any of them?" Urahara asked, his finger down on a control.

"No," Jinta answered over the comms. "Too much lead time to hit with the pulse cannon and we're going to fast to fire missiles."

"What's the temporal delay between us and them?" Kisuke asked as Rukia appeared back on the bridge.

"About two seconds," she answered, her eyes skimming her station.

Kisuke sat back in his chair, eyes narrowed at the sensor screen, another burst of laser fire flashing out and forcing Ichigo to make another correction. "I think we're being herded."


	8. Price of Free Space

Free Spacer territory. They still called it that even though the Free Spacer colonies were only a memory in the oldest citizens of the system, and a footnote in history to everyone else. By now, their cities had fallen to crumbling ruin, their space stations and shipyards were nothing more than floating derelicts. Years ago, at the height of the Free Spacer population explosion the outer orbits had been a place of wealth and prosperity. The new colonies were so far from the central four-and-six that they had to rely on only each other, fostering a camaraderie that led to a powerful economic coalition stretching from the moons of the tenth to the eighteenth and final planet of the system.

Steeped in easy to obtain natural resources that were in high demand, their affluence easily began to rival that of the inner orbits. Rumors of succession began floating across the colonies, the idea of a Free Spacer Nation growing in popularity. However, it all came to ruin as industrial accidents and the sudden devaluing of their exports began to plague the Free Spacers. The result was the total collapse of such a young and fragile economy. Rumors of sabotage and market manipulation were quickly buried as the colonial government sent food, medical supplies and thousands of soldiers in enormous carrier class warships to the outer orbits. They had managed to establish occupancy of Free Spacer territory without firing a single shot, under the auspices of a relief mission.

Poverty, crime, starvation, disease and violence were suddenly rampant among a population that had not known them in generations. Marshall law and states of emergency were declared across the outer orbits but it was not enough to prevent more than a quarter of the Free Spacer population from perishing. Many of those that survived, living back under the ever present watch of the colonial occupation, grew to quietly hate the colonial government. Their anger, frustration and sheer desperation drove many to a life of piracy, striking out at the lightly defended transports they themselves used to rely on, then quickly retreating to the myriad of empty space stations, mining platforms and industrial complexes to hide from the colonial navy.

It was this that Ichigo dwelled on as the Red Princess flew on through the dark, sensors indicating they were well past the tenth planet's orbit by now. A blue-green flash of laser fire flickered from behind them, past the viewport and out into the space ahead. Oh yeah, the Hollows. Ichigo dwelled on the Hollows shooting at them too.

"Hollows don't herd, it's not in their nature," Rukia argued.

"Normally you'd be correct, but these particular Hollows are behaving anything but normally," interjected a voice from the darkened corridor leading down to the cargo hold. "Permission to the bridge, Captain?" Her voice was smoky, rich and utterly feminine, but carried a warmth of mischievousness.

"Of course Yoruichi, be my guest," Urahara said, a smile on his face even as another flash of blue-green laser fire lit up the bridge. "I see you managed to attract some attention over the course of your mission."

"I took as many precautions as was possible, it seems that once it was beyond the containment shields it activated and pursuit would have been unavoidable." She stepped up next to Urahara's central chair and leaned against the railing. "It's nice to see you again, Kisuke."

"Likewise," he replied, pressing his lips to the top of her hand. "Are your sure it was wise, taking her ship I mean. She'll kill you once she realizes what you've done."

"She's sworn to kill me already, what's one more thing on her grudge list?"

"Can we focus on the situation at hand?" Rukia interjected, her voice as sharp as cold steel.

"The situation at hand will not be changed by any amount of focus," Kisuke said, keeping his eyes on Yoruichi. "But if we neglect the observance of hospitality," he kissed her knuckles once more, "It sinks us all to the level of uncouth savages."

"Hospitality aside," Rukia emphasized, "Hollows don't herd, they don't need to. They swarm a ship when operating in a pack, there's no reason for them to hold back and try to guide us anywhere."

"Ichigo, in your opinion, are we being herded or swarmed?" Urahara asked.

Ichigo sighed. The Red Princess, even at full burn with an empty hold would never hope to out run this trio of Hollow ships. Sensor data was telling him they were probably the fastest things he'd ever seen, they would flash out and fire bursts of laser fire across any vector Ichigo tried to turn into, but they weren't closing and trying to disable them either. He had seen this before, out with his father as they traveled the rim. Pirates, afraid of accidentally cracking the reactor core, would flush a target towards overwhelming force rather than try to take the ship on their own. "They could take us any time they want to, they're holding back. We're being herded into an ambush."

The bridge went silent.

"That's, that's impossible. Look Ichigo, you haven't done this for as long as we have, you don't have the experience to make that kind of claim," Rukia said.

Ichigo swiveled around in his seat, eyes locking onto hers. He opened his mouth to acidly rebuke her when his neural link began wailing, sensor data streaming across his eyes. "Oh shit." Ichigo spun around to face his controls, fingers flying over the surfaces as he desperately did everything he could to turn their course. He grit his teeth as he began weaving the bulky ship around the laser fire, taking as much advantage of their two second temporal lag as possible. It wasn't going to be enough, they were flying too fast and had too much mass to turn far enough. They were going to slide sideways to their deaths and Ichigo couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Everyone on the bridge began yelling at once, mostly at Ichigo. Urahara's voice cut over everyone's with a definitive, "Pilot, report!"

"There's a fucking net out there, Captain. The Hollow's have driven us into an entropy net!" Two seconds later, enough time for everyone on the bridge to realize the ramifications of Ichigo's statement, every light across every control console, every display, every system aboard the _Red Princess_ powered down. The reactor was off, engines were off, A-Grav was off, and most dangerously, the ship's inertial dampeners were off while they were still traveling at several thousand miles per second. They were plunged into sudden and absolute darkness, an absence of light so thorough that the only way to be sure they hadn't gone blind was to find the viewport and focus on the tiny dots of starlight.

There was a flash past the viewport and a bright dot of light settled in front of them.

"Brace for impact," Ichigo called out. There was a shuddering, jarring vibration throughout the ship. The viewport went completely dark as the ship began to rumble with growing intensity, shaking as if they were skimming the atmosphere of a planet. The turbulence grew progressively worse, the entire ship rocking and heaving, until there was a loud bang and the ship lurched to a sudden stop.

The rapid deceleration threw Ichigo hard against his harness, making him feel like someone had tried to pull his brain out through his nose. Wincing at the bruises he'd get across his chest, he pushed himself back and patted his arms and legs, realizing he was relatively uninjured. He reached down in the pitch darkness, feeling his hand to one of his pockets and drew out a small light, flicked it on and turned around in his station.

"Everyone alright?" Urahara asked. Yoruichi had been pulled across his lap and Kisuke had locked his arms around her torso. Ichigo had not had a good look at her when she first came aboard, but in the harsh light he could see she had been in fairly bad shape even before they hit the entropy net. She was streaked with lines of powdered ash, probably from when her ship's life support system had been hit, and her clothes were torn and singed. However, her bright amber eyes were almost glowing with exhilaration, her smile was infectious as she realized they weren't dead. She extricated herself from his embrace gracefully, pulling her flowing dark violet hair back from her face before getting her own flashlight from a pocket of her jacket.

"All hands, report," Urahara said, remembering he was the captain again.

"Navigation, I'm fine," Ichigo said.

"Astrometrics, I'm uninjured," Rukia said, pushing herself up from the console. She glanced over to Ichigo but couldn't see his face behind the flashlight's glare. She produced a small chemical light and activated it, flooding the area around her in a frosty blue incandescence.

"Engineering," spoke a small, timid voice, "I'm okay. Jinta was down at firing control, I'll go check on him." Ururu unbuckled the restraints and hurriedly propelled herself down the rear corridor, an oversized flashlight leading the way.

"What was that?" Rukia asked, poking at her consoles in vain attempt to get any system to come back online.

"An entropy net," Urahara said helpfully, snatching his cane as it tried to float away. "It's not really a net, but it uses quantum entanglement to introduce an instability in our reactor, shutting it down until we can bring it back online again."

"I know what an entropy net is," Rukia muttered, "I meant what did we collide with?"

"A sludge missile," Ichigo said. He had turned his flashlight back to the viewport. Instead the blackness of space dotted with hundreds of stars, there was only shiny purple goop smeared all over, occluding the entire viewport. Ichigo knew their leading edges would be coated in it, meters thick in most places.

"What the hell is all over my ship?" Urahara said as he looked at the viewport, real anger coloring his voice for the first time.

Ichigo didn't reply, the question was rhetorical anyway. Sludge missiles were often used by mining vessels to retard the velocity of comets and asteroids so they could capture them more easily. A conventional chemical rocket would fly in front of the object and let loose a thin stream of this high density, glue-like material. It would quickly coat the object, increased mass and impact friction all combining to decelerate the object until the rocket itself popped its nose off and flew straight backwards, burying itself in the pileup of goop and doing its best to negate any remaining momentum. Pirates found they were the perfect thing for slowing down disabled ships and knocking the crew around while leaving the cargo intact.

"The reactor is going to take a few minutes to come back online and stabilize," Rukia said.

Urahara pushed himself to the rear corridor doorway. "Jinta, if you're alright then get the reactor back online!" he yelled.

"Okay!" they heard Jinta yell back.

"I'm sorry Kisuke," Yoruichi said softly, "This is all my fault."

"You couldn't have known the Hollows would do this," Urahara said, his voice beginning to soften. A dark and pensive look came over his face as he turned away from her.

"At least we know one thing," Ichigo said. "They chased us into a trap here, it means they want us alive."

"Hollows don't take living prisoners," Rukia corrected.

"Are we really going to have another conversation about what Hollows do or don't do?" Ichigo asked, growing annoyed at her contrariness. He watched her throw up her hands and turn away.

"Hollows setting traps, taking prisoners," Rukia muttered, rubbing a growing ache across her forehead. She paused, shooting a look at Urahara. "What do you know about this?"

"Me? How would I know anything, I'm just a simple machine shop owner," Urahara asked.

"There's something weird going here," Rukia said, trying to process what this new Hollow behavior meant. "Why would they take us alive?"

"The reason," Urahara said, "Is sitting in the _Sparrow Bee's_ cargo hold."

"What could they want so badly that they'd..." Rukia said, a look of comprehension dawning on her face.

"What, what is it?" Ichigo asked.

"Which one did you get?" Rukia asked, unbuckling from her station and floating towards him. "You know, it doesn't even matter. I've figured it out and I can't believe it, you've finally killed us all just to satisfy your goddamn curiosity." She aimed a finger at Yoruichi, who instantly affected an innocent, unassuming air. "And you are an enabler of his lunacy."

"Rukia, that cuts deep," Urahara said jokingly. His face darkened considerably, "And you have no idea what's really going on."

Ichigo watched Rukia take a deep breath and close her eyes, willing herself to focus. She wasn't just composing herself, it was like she was detaching herself from the situation, boxing up her fear and anger and setting them aside where they wouldn't interfere. "We need to think of something, quickly, before the Hollows out there get tired of us being alive."

Ichigo turned back to shine the light at the front viewport and started chuckling.

"What is so funny?" Rukia asked.

"The Hollows, using a pirate trap to catch us. I bet the pirates are gonna be pissed they missed this one," Ichigo said.

"Why's that?" Rukia continued facetiously.

"This is a pirate's dream catch, lightly crewed transport on the fringes of its travel range with no navy escort and carrying not one, but two colonial fighter ships each loaded with military grade weaponry. Even better, they're both broke down at the moment."

"The _Sode no Shirayuki_ isn't broke down at the moment," whispered a voice from the rear corridor. Ururu slipped quietly back onto the bridge and over to her station. "She is simply missing one engine." The bridge became very quiet. "Oh, I'm sorry, please excuse my interruption."

Rukia and Ichigo stared at each other for a pregnant second before they each made a scrambling dash for the rear corridor leading to the cargo hold. Ichigo arrived at the hall just before Rukia and he planted a boot against the jam and the other under one of the consoles. He reached back and held out a hand to Rukia. "I can't believe no one thought of this sooner."

Rukia reached up and grasped his outstretched forearm. She was surprised when Ichigo wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his chest before leaping off his perch and shooting down the middle of the hallway. "There's still a problem," she said, looking up at him, his profile limned in blue from the light dangling in her hand. Ichigo released her as they hurtled down into the cargo hold, moving as fast as they could manage with the A-Grav disabled and all the lights off. Rukia landed at the storage locker and pulled out two black and white flightsuits as Ichigo caught up to her.

"What's that?" Ichigo said, holding his flashlight in his teeth and tumbling about as he kicked out of his loose utility pants. _Do not stare, she'll notice and make snide comments_ , he told himself.

"The cargo bay doors," Rukia said, unzipping her own pants and shimmying out of them. _Stop glancing at him_ , she told herself, _focus on the problem and not on him_. Despite herself, she snuck a peek as he pulled his suit up to his waist.

One arm inside his flightsuit, Ichigo paused and swiveled around to the cargo bay floor. The small flashlight did a poor job illuminating the cavernous cargo hold, but he could see the gleaming white paneling of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ secured to a launch harness designed to fit inside the _Red Princess_. Across from her was the _Sparrow Bee_ , and beyond them both were the large main doors of the cargo hold. He turned back to see Rukia pull her pressure shirt off over her head, her inky black hair spilling from it like it was flowing under water. Clad only in a simple black bra and a pair of black panties, she pulled her flightsuit up onto her shoulders and sealed her it up from her navel to her throat. "No power, can't open the doors. Manual control?" he managed say. _There's an image that'll never go away_ , he thought.

"Would take too long," Rukia said, tucking a helmet beneath her arm and handing one to Ichigo. "What are you waiting for, get your flightsuit on."

"We could... shoot the doors off?" Ichigo did not think that was a very good idea, despite having seen it done on countless old "movies" his father made them watch.

Rukia looked at him incredulously. "Are you insane?"

Ichigo gave her an exasperated shrug. "Do you have any brilliant ideas?"

"Mister Kurosaki, Miss Kuchiki, please seal your helmets and prepare for launch. Mister Urahara has ordered emergency battery power be redirected from life support to the cargo bay doors," Ururu said as she floated down past them.

"What? But that's crazy!" Ichigo attested.

"Each of the ship's softsuits has two hours of breathing time, four if physical activity is kept to a minimum, more than enough time to get the main reactor back online. Besides," Ururu said as she gathered up suits from the storage compartments, "Mister Urahara is afraid you will attempt to shoot the cargo bay doors off."

Rukia shot Ichigo a superior look but he managed to wash it away by pointing out that Urahara had thought of it too. The two of them clicked their helmets into place and floated out over the railing, down to the open cockpit of the _Sode no Shirayuki._ The canopy slid down into place with a soft whir as they buckled their restraints, the cargo bay doors suddenly illuminating at the far end of the near pitch black cargo hold. Red rotating warning lights began spinning as the other doors to the cargo hold swung shut and pressure locked.

"Reactor is online, levels are even, engine two... well, our only engine is reporting a stable couple to the reactor, navigation, attitude control, are all reporting a green light," Ichigo said, his control consoles lighting up in the darkness.

"Targeting and TA system is online, astrometrics, weapon systems, and sensors are at green light status," Rukia answered.

"Hey Rukia," Ichigo said as the main cargo bay doors began pulling apart, the inky blackness of space just beyond. "What do say we go dancin'?" The sound of the air in the cargo bay rushing past them into the vacuum of space was muffled by the ship's canopy and their helmets, but he knew his voice was right there next to her ear.

"Don't step on my toes and try to keep up," Rukia answered. A dull thud vibrated through their seats as the mooring clamps released the ship, leaving it floating gently above its docking harness. Rukia felt herself pressed back into her seat as Ichigo cycled up the engine, flying the ship down the length of the cargo hold and clearing the bay doors. The transition from cargo bay interior to the limitless reaches of space was sudden and complete, Rukia turning her head to catch a glimpse of the _Red Princess_ fading behind them as Ichigo brought the interceptor up to speed. "We are weapons hot," she said as the ship's wings swung down into position and the flight control surfaces extended to combat readiness.

Ichigo had opened the targeting control and sensor overlay systems into his neural link, smoothly sliding the ship around so Rukia could cover the _Red Princess._ "Alright, now where are they?"

"I've got hot and cold signatures all around us, seven total." Rukia slid her fingers across the screens, pulling displays up in her neural link and fixing each positive contact to the targeting array. "The Hollows are... waiting for something? At least that's what it looks like, they're out there at the edge of sensor range."

"Yeah, they're waiting for us. Let's go say hi."

She wasn't sure what the Hollows were doing. They each had some kind of large receiver deployed, pointed away from them. "They're moving to engage," Rukia called out as two of the Hollows wheeled in their direction and fired up their engines, speeding towards them.

Evading light-based weaponry is difficult but not impossible. At distances greater than two hundred thousand miles, there's more than a second of time between you and your enemy's ability to target. At close range it becomes less about using temporal lag and more about moving faster than your enemy's weapons can track. In order to hit targets at extreme range, weapons systems are often very carefully and finely calibrated, which do not respond well to sudden and drastic changes in the target's location and speed. At least, that was Ichigo's theory as he banked and rolled his way around flashing bursts of yellow laser fire.

"Watch the power draw levels, Ichigo," Rukia said, "The reactor's designed for two engines, it'll blow out only one."

Ichigo didn't immediately reply, focusing instead on weaving a path to line up a decent shot for her. "You said there were seven targets?"

"Three hot, four cold. Probably the pirates who own the entropy net."

"And this has never happened before? Hollows killing pirates and using their own trap?"

"No, never."

Ichigo narrowed his eyes, watching the two contact blips on the navigation screen as he pulled the ship hard to the side. A beam of bright laser fire flickered through the space behind them. "Get ready Rukia," he warned. The control surfaces surrounding the engine exhaust pivoted inward as Ichigo slammed full burn thrust into reverse, forcing the ship to a hard stop. The Hollow ship that had just fired at them continued along its vector for a few seconds before it could correct, drifting right into Rukia's sights.

Rukia heard the beeping of the targeting array as it tracked the Hollow ship. She inhaled, watching the targeting reticle trace its path and smoothly glide into place over the Hollow, the beeping changing to the single, long tone of target lock. She exhaled, pressing the firing control. Four missiles flashed out into the dark, streaking towards the Hollow ship's exposed flank. Rukia kept the Hollow firmly locked even as Ichigo punched the engine, rolling the ship over and pitching into a graceful arc, doing his best to keep the nose pointed at their target. She watched with grim satisfaction as the four dots of light collided with the Hollow, one after the other and all in the same place, tearing deeper into the enemy ship with each powerful explosion.

The Hollow, its hull cracked and ragged, purple and red plasma fire licking across its wounded side, frantically tried to turn away from them. Unfortunately, the angle it turned into kept it in line with the _Sode no Shirayuki's_ weapons. It couldn't bring its engines up fast enough to escape before it was torn to shreds by a hail of mass driver fire.

Rukia eased her finger off the firing control. "Splash one." They didn't have much time to celebrate as the ship lurched beneath them, heavy laser fire boiling away the ablative armor across the underside of the ship.

"Shit, how bad?" Ichigo called out, spiraling the ship away from the other Hollow who had taken a bead on them.

"Didn't pierce the armor, don't let it hit that spot again though," Rukia said, opening the damage report display.

"What's that last Hollow doing?"

"Still sitting out there."

"Weird, I don't like it," he said, tucking the ship into a tight flip.

Rukia sent a sweep of railgun fire at the Hollow but it had anticipated their move and was angling to get another shot at their weakened armor. Ichigo pivoted the ship around and sped off in a wide curve, the Hollow's yellow laser tracking after them.

"I have an idea," Ichigo said as he punched the engine to full burn and spun the ship back around at the Hollow, head on.

The _Sode no Shirayuki_ suddenly veered to the side, a large burst of engine exhaust flashing from her only thruster. Her engine flamed out and tumbling out of control through the dark, she went from agile hunter to helpless prey in seconds. The remaining Hollow fired up its engines and flew down to get a lock on the weakened area beneath the ship. The sleek white ship tried firing a missile but it went harmlessly wide, the Hollow not even bothering to try to evade it. Slowing, the Hollow lined up its shot at the underside of the ship, its weapons charging to full capacity. A brief flash and pale flicker was all the warning it had as its main weapon bay exploded, the charge built up inside violently destabilizing, ripping the Hollow ship in half.

Ichigo tore his mind away from his neural link as fast as he could, connected through the ship's nav computer out to the missile they had fired. Not fast enough, he screamed as the feedback from the explosion lashed through the system, sending waves of agony down his spine and white hot bursts of fire popping behind his eyes. He managed to somehow close the crumbling connection before he slumped back into the pilot's seat, his spasming muscles finally under his control again. "Splash... two..." he wheezed.

Stunned, Rukia simply stared at him in disbelief. The targeting system managed to grab her attention, the warning tone of the threat assessment control blaring loud in her ears. "The last Hollow has engaged us, we've been target locked and it's powering up weapons."

"Gotta start... the... engine..." Ichigo mumbled semi-coherently. His fingers tapped out over the controls and the engine flared back to life before his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Ichigo," Rukia said, a slight quiver in her voice, "Sensors are reporting another inbound contact, energy weapon signature confirmed. Ichigo? Ichigo!"

Ichigo heard her but he couldn't respond. His head was still full of roaring static and he couldn't concentrate. His mouth tasted wet and a coppery scent was filling his nose. The stars outside the canopy swam crazily, splitting apart and sliding all around. Above it all though, Ichigo heard her voice calling out to him, telling him to... do something. Ichigo tried to listen but it was like his head was too heavy for his neck. What was she saying? A trap? Someone had been shooting at them, but didn't they take care of that already? He could hear a little better now, she was whispering in his ear. She sounded close, strong, but a little afraid. There was a tiny tremor in her voice, telling him he needed to fly. Fly. If he was going to save them, he needed to fly.

Ichigo grit his teeth and did his best to ignore the sensation of his head splitting in two. People were depending on him, Rukia was depending on him.

Rukia felt the ship suddenly surge forward, the engine cycled up to full burn and exhaust went streaming out behind them. Relieved, she focused back on the last two Hollows. If they were lucky maybe she could disarm or incapacitate one of them before the other burned them to cinders. The ship's targeting reticle skimmed across her eye as she brought weapons to bear, working out missile trajectories and firing arcs across her displays. In her heart she knew it was too late. The other Hollow had them dead to rights and had fully charged its weapons. Before the Hollow could fire and before she could even acquire target lock, a huge blue lance of shimmering energy sliced into Hollow, cleaving it cleanly in half.

"What was that?" Rukia asked as she watched the Hollow ship disintegrate.

"Did we do that?" Ichigo asked, still slightly groggy. "Because that was pretty cool."

"No, that ship did," Rukia said. The ship she had originally designated as another hostile contact, the one that had come speeding in from long range as they had dispatched the first two Hollows, was the one that had fired that energy lance.

"This is Uryu Ishida of the _QNC Longbow_ , defender of the outer orbits and the last of the guardians of free space, to the reaper class interceptor designated as the _Sode no Shirayuki_ ," spoke an imperious voice over the comm, dripping with disdain.

"This is Snow White of the _Sode no Shirayuki,_ we read you _Longbow_ ," Rukia replied, still somewhat bewildered.

"The colonial navy is not welcome here," Uryu said, his weapons gaining target lock on the interceptor. "And neither is the G-13."


	9. Uncontrolled Reaction

The ships hung there in space, unmoving and silent. The _Red Princess_ was still dark and half covered with purple slime, the _Sode no Shirayuki_ had full weapons deployed and aimed at the _QNC Longbow_ , which had a full charge loaded in its energy lance and was pointed right back at the small, white interceptor. They, in turn, were surrounded by the hulks of four destroyed and half-eaten pirate vessels arrayed to pounce upon the victim of their entropy net trap.

"If he knows who the G-13 are, and he shoots down Hollows too, doesn't that make us on the same side here?" Ichigo asked. He had a splitting headache and wasn't quite sure what made sense at the moment.

"Not really, the QNC squadron was the Free Spacer militia, established to patrol their moons and mining operations," Rukia answered. "But as far as I know, they were wiped out when the Free Spacer colonies fell, squadron disbanded, ships destroyed, and all records of Hollow activity wiped out."

"I guess they missed one. Anyway, he sounded pretty serious when he said we weren't welcome," Ichigo said.

"The _Red Princess_ is still powered down, we can't leave without them," Rukia said, checking her display.

"Well we can't just sit here pointing guns at each other all damn day," Ichigo said. He jabbed the comm control open before Rukia could stop him. "Hey, Uryu, this is Ichigo Kurosaki and I don't know what your problem with the G-13 is, and I don't really care either."

"Ichigo!" Rukia hissed.

"But I figure that since we don't want any trouble with the local militia, and you probably don't want any trouble with the navy, maybe we can come to some type of understanding here. So how about this, we all put our guns away, we get our transport moving again, and we all go our separate ways, hmm?" Ichigo finished, holding a placating hand up over his shoulder. His head was pounding worse with every word he spoke.

There was a long silence over the comms before they crackled to life again. "Kurosaki? That name is familiar."

Ichigo inwardly groaned. "Isshin Kurosaki is my father and captain of the medical ship _Masaki_. We traveled the rim and outer orbits for a long while."

"Yes, and you were the pilot if I recall," Uryu said over the comm. "Your father is well known, and a good man."

"I'll tell him you said so," Ichigo said, feeling pale.

"You fly for the colonial navy now?" Uryu asked.

"He's powering down weapons," Rukia said in Ichigo's ear, her eyes carefully monitoring her displays. After a moment, Rukia powered down the weapon systems on the _Sode no Shirayuki_ as well, the white paneling along her wings, sides and undercarriage closing up over them.

"The girls love a guy in uniform," Ichigo half mumbled. Sweat was beading across his brow and his hands were beginning to shake.

"Captain Ishida," Rukia said, "Do you have any data on what the three Hollow ships were doing before they engaged us?"

"It's just Uryu," he replied. "And yes, my long range sensor readings indicate that they were calling in reinforcements, likely the force that dispatched these pirates. I anticipate a moderately formidable group of Hollow ships to be en route as we speak."

"How long until they get here?" Rukia asked.

"No way to tell for certain, but I expect them to be at least twenty minutes away," Uryu replied. He sniffed as if he was considering something. "Normally I would welcome the chance to test the mettle of the G-13 against that of the _Longbow_ in an engagement against a flight of Hollow ships, but it would risk the innocent lives of those on the transport you were escorting."

"We weren't-" Ichigo began before Rukia cut him off.

"That is very gracious of you, Uryu."

"Think nothing of it, Miss White. It would hardly be a fair competition, trust the wisdom of the G-13 to send a short range interceptor as escort for a transport to the outer orbits." The contempt in his voice was palpable.

"This guy sure thinks a lot of himself," Ichigo thought to himself, or said out loud, he wasn't too sure.

"Once your transport has her engines back online, I will provide escort to your destination. You may provide combat support should a situation arise."

"We appreciate your... concern," Rukia said, her eyebrow twitching.

"Let me be clear, I have a duty to protect the citizens of the outer orbits. To leave a transport vessel with such a insufficient escort would be a dereliction of that duty," Uryu corrected. "Contact me again once your transport's engines are back online." The comm channel immediately disconnected.

"That arrogant, pompous asshole," Rukia fumed. She angrily punched commands into her console and pressurized the cabin, a soft hiss growing as air filled the interior of the little ship. "I'm a member of the colonial armed forces, I'm a _soldier_. We don't need his or anyone's protection." She unsealed her helmet and pulled it off. "Unbelievable, did you hear his voice? We were doing just fine before he-" she paused as she caught sight of Ichigo.

"I'm right there with you," he slurred, pulling off his own helmet. He immediately regretted it, as he was suddenly sure his helmet was the only thing keeping his head from splitting open. The helmet tumbled away from his limp fingers as he squeezed his eyes shut. "We totally could have taken on a whole 'nother bunch of em," he mumbled. He touched his fingers to his mouth and watched blood float away, tiny red spheres drifting above him.

"Ichigo, are you alright?" Rukia asked, unbuckling from her station and floating over the consoles. The laser blast they had taken must have done more damage than she thought, the controls and displays across Ichigo's station were flickering and unstable.

"Feedback, from the missile thing. Wasn't a good idea after all," he replied. He blinked his eyes and found her peering at him upside-down, lit by the soft running lights under the consoles, the blackness of space beyond the canopy framing her all around. He felt her hands, warm and soft, touching his cheeks as her luminous blue-violet eyes stared deep into his own. He was just noticing how nice they felt when he remembered something. Rukia's pupils suddenly dilated and her breath caught in her throat, her hands freezing as though stuck to his skin. "Crap, too late," Ichigo muttered as he mentally, clumsily flailed through the controls of his neural link.

"I...chi...go..." Rukia whispered, her breath quickening, color flushing across her face, "Put... your... safeties... up..."

"I've almost got it," he said, his own breath ragged, both from his massive headache and the unintentional neural connection between them.

The axiom that misery loves company became too literal once neural links were commonplace throughout the system. Because they used a person's own nervous system as the means to transmit information from the user to a computer system, skin-to-skin contact between two people without neural insulation systems resulted in a unique phenomenon as each tried to process input from both, outputing the results into the brain of the other. Sensory resonance connections, colloquially known feelinks, a portmanteau of 'feeling' and 'link', were an unintentional but widely embraced side effect of neural link technology. The immediate result, which Rukia did not appear to be enjoying, was sharing in the pain from Ichigo's wracking headache. He could feel her own anxiety and shock seeping into his mind, followed by a low and dangerous anger, a cold and strange sensation. Ichigo finally found and activated the safety system, severing their neural connection. He watched Rukia recoil with a snap, wrapping an arm protectively across her chest while the other massaged her head.

The ghost of his headache beginning to fade, Rukia stared down at him with a mix of emotions. The fact he was able to function at all in such nauseating pain was surprising, it had nearly immobilized her with the severity of it and she was only experiencing a filtered portion. She was furious, both at him and herself for not bothering to check their safety systems before touching. Feelink connections were highly personal experiences, something she had not indulged in since leaving her home moon, and she was irrationally disappointed that her first connection in such long time had been nothing but pain.

"I'm sorry, my fault," Ichigo said, his face pale. "My control wavered for a minute." _It's still wavering,_ he told himself, _get yourself together!_ Try as he might, he could see rainbow colored lights flickering at the edges of his vision while his heartbeat began to pound in his ears. Beginning to panic, Ichigo tried to swallow but his mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

"No, you're barely coherent, I didn't bother checking my link before I touched your face," Rukia replied. _Although, I shouldn't have to check it, it should always be on,_ she thought.

"Have to..." he said thickly, his head floating limply on his neck, "Stay in control..." Blackness deeper than space swirled in his vision as semi-consciousness began to give way.

Rukia, still floating near Ichigo, watched as all the console displays on the piloting station fuzzed over with static, the lights of the cabin beginning to flicker and brown out in time with Ichigo's eye movements behind his lids. Confused, she checked her neural insulation safeties before reaching back out to him. Gripping him by the shoulder, she tried giving him a shake before her finger grazed the skin of his neck. Before she could even blink in surprise there was a squeal of static in her ears and her vision lit up with colored lights as her neural link was thrown back into sensory resonance mode.

Terror, a raw and naked fear, flooded through her mind. She instinctively tried to flee, literally drowning in such a potent, primal emotion. Teeth clenched, she was desperately trying to draw in breath to scream when the connection abruptly terminated, the suffocating sense of overriding fear slipping away to insubstantial nothingness. Heart racing, eyes wide in panic, fingers clutching the front of her flightsuit, Rukia tried to get herself back under control. She realized she had pushed herself as far away from Ichigo as she could the moment the connection had ended, curling around herself.

"What the _hell,_ Ichigo?" she said, her voice barely more than a pained whimper. She stared at his motionless form as her rapid heartbeat gradually slowed. It was then she noticed that all the consoles and lights had returned to normal.

* * *

He cracked his eyes open but immediately shut them again, the lights above were harsh and piercing. He blinked his eyes and squinted, trying to adjust to the glare and get a look at his surroundings. Ichigo tried bringing an arm up only to smack himself in the face, sending a throb of aching pain through his head. Jolted, he kicked his legs and twisted away, accidentally rolling off whatever he was laying on and landing heavily on the floor. Breathing heavily, he could see his hands in front of him, curled into fists on metal grating.

"Good, you're awake."

Ichigo pushed himself back to his knees and turned blearily toward the voice. "Rukia," he said, his mouth dry. He felt himself grow slightly dizzy and dropped down to sit against what he had just fallen off of. "Where are we?" They were bathed by only a few sodium lights from somewhere high above, their light was rich but unnatural, containing far too much yellow. Nearby sat squat, massive shapes shrouded in darkness and covered with some type of fabric. Eyes clearing, he could make out hundreds of those shapes, silent and still in the dimness, extending far out into the cavernous room of some type of huge factory floor. The sudden transition from unconsciousness to alertness left him slightly off balance, and he looked around for Rukia to find something familiar.

"We're at one of Uryu's service stations, an old textile manufacturing ship in orbit around Junrinan," she said, standing from a chair leaning against one of the heavy machines. "How's your head?"

Ichigo heaved himself up from the floor and levered himself up onto the simple bunk. "Better," he replied, somewhat surprised.

Rukia nodded, walking over to stand near him. "We gave you something to stabilize your vitals and ease the pain in your head, but the A-Grav on the _Red Princess_ is still off. Uryu offered us the use of his service bay and medical supplies to treat you." She knelt down next to him, being careful not to touch him again. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"You, calling Ishida a pompous asshole."

"I see," said another voice. Ichigo looked to his side to see another figure step from the darkness, light glinting off a pair of glasses as he pushed them up higher on his face. There was a severe look to him, the style of his hair, the cut of his clothes, the pinch of his face. To Ichigo, it was almost too much dour seriousness for any one person to possibly maintain.

Rukia's face colored slightly as she glanced over at him. "We appreciate your hospitality, Uryu. If I could speak to my pilot, alone?"

"Of course Miss White," he replied. He snapped a short bow and withdrew, the chain across the shoulder of his rather dressy flight uniform jingling slightly. "I'll check on the progress of the transport crew, please return to the dry dock hangar when you're able."

"I'm surprised he can walk, let alone bow, with that giant stick up his..." Ichigo turned back to Rukia to find himself staring down the barrel of a weapon.

Rukia chambered a round with a single, smooth motion and narrowed her eyes down the ironsights. "Explain."

"Explain what?" Ichigo asked, holding very still. Rukia had obviously dropped the caring and concerned act, going straight to cold and angry in seconds.

"I'm not an idiot. Too many weird things happen around you for it to be a coincidence, you fly too well," Rukia started.

"Too well? I have been doing it for a while you know," Ichigo answered. The look she shot him froze the next smartass remark he had ready, telling him very clearly that this was no joke.

"This isn't your father's medical ship or your hovercycle we're talking about, idiot. You fly _my_ ship too well. It took me the better part of a year to learn _basic_ controls. Urahara tried telling me but I didn't listen, he thinks it's just blind luck we met but there has got to be something else going on here."

"Rukia, what are you talking about?"

"Then you somehow know how to service the ship after what, looking at it for five minutes? And that thing you did on the _Red Princess_? No one knows how to do that in a ship they've never flown before. Shit, no one knows how to do that, period."

"I can."

She ignored him. "And what the hell was that with the missile and you losing consciousness and the consoles and lights and," her voice threatened to break, "That fucking sensory resonance connection deactivating my safety system?" She jabbed him with the barrel of her gun with each word. "No one's neural link is supposed to work that way."

"Deactivating your... no, my safety system was off but my link is old and doesn't always work right. I shouldn't be able to, I mean, how could I deactivate your safeties?"

"Like this," she snatched one his hands in her own, her fingers pressing hard into the skin of his palm. She felt an instantaneous tingling across her neural link, like pressing her tongue across a battery, but no sensory resonance. Her safety system was still in place. "I don't understand," she half whispered.

Ichigo glanced down at their hands, then back up her eyes. "I don't really understand either." He leaned forward, mindful of the gun she had leveled at him. "Tell me what happened."

"You started to blackout from the missile feedback, you were holding your head and all the consoles around you were flickering or distorted," she said. She swallowed before continuing, "I reached out to touch you, to make sure you were alright, and my neural safety system was down, and so was yours." She looked away from him but the hand holding her weapon remained steady. "I felt your headache, then I touched you again as you slipped unconscious. I had put my safety system back up, I know I did, but it feelinked again." She turned back to him to see genuine remorse on his face. "I felt... terror, worse than anything I've ever felt."

Ichigo felt his chest tighten as he fought to control his breathing. "It isn't, you weren't... that's private."

Rukia could see grief and anguish warring across his face, hidden beneath the ever present scowl. "Explain it to me, please Ichigo." Rukia activated a display connection to Ichigo's neural link as she brought up two hovering screens.

He closed his eyes and blew a long breath, not bothering to look at whatever she wanted to show him. "The consoles on the screen went black, or all torn and corrupt?" He opened his eyes to see her nod. Her face was set back in an emotionless mask but he could detect a faint note of worry at the edges of her eyes. "I don't understand, that hasn't happened since..."

"Since when?" Rukia demanded. "Dammit Ichigo, if it's dangerous you should have told me, I need to be able to trust you..." She stopped as she watched his face harden.

"When I was younger, when I got my first neural link, something went wrong. A couple people were hurt, and my mother was killed." His voice sounded lifeless, even to himself.

"Ichigo..."

"I didn't know how to use my link very well I guess, half the time it wouldn't really work at all. So when we were coming back home one day across the airlock gangway I was opening command displays at random, just to see if it could work. I didn't know they were supposed to be secured, they just opened for me. I wasn't really paying attention and there was an explosion in the pressure system. I was thrown into the wall and the blast doors closed all down the corridor, trapping my mom on one side and me on the other. I couldn't think clearly, all I remember is trying to work the panel on the door and watching it fuzz over and go black."

Rukia was quiet. She looked down at the gun she had pressed against him and was ashamed of herself. She tried to speak but Ichigo continued on.

"I moved to the blast door window, she was still there, I just needed to open the panel locks, but nothing was working. I ran from the primary to the secondary but it went black as I came close. I could feel my link roaring like static in my head. I tried to get it under control but it was too late, the gangway beyond had flexed and splintered apart, all floating silently in space. And, my mother..." he could no longer continue, his eyes no longer seeing Rukia's forlorn face. Instead, he saw the shattered remains of the airlock gangway beyond the blast door, his mother tumbling away into the night. Dredging up these memories was painful and Ichigo didn't know if he could continue with what happened afterward. His cowardice, the things he had done to seek solace from his terrible nightmares, his crushing guilt.

"I... I'm sorry," Rukia said quietly.

"I promised myself to never let something like that happen again. Piloting helped me stay focused, and while I was, my link would work pretty well. Things would become clear to me, moving a ship around was so simple, natural." He looked at the display video loop of him clutching his head in the cockpit of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , the consoles and lights randomly flickering. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't warn you it might be dangerous, I'm sorry you felt what you did."

"What happened, the day your mother... that's why you were so afraid as you started to blackout..." Rukia said, gently easing the hammer on her weapon and slipping it back into its holster.

Ichigo nodded. "I couldn't let it happen again, not to anyone I... not to anyone." There was more he wanted to say to her, but his throat was tight, unable to form words and barely able to draw breath. He stared out one of the far away viewports and could see the curving blue bands of clouds of the planet Junrinan beyond.

Rukia was quiet, giving him some space. Eventually she broke the silence saying, "Well, whatever is wrong with your neural link is probably why it shows up as zero percent usage." She pulled up the other display to show him, "See?"

"Maybe, but that has happened with every neural link I've tried," he said, shrugging a shoulder and still refusing to look at her.

"Wait, every one? How many have you gone through?"

"I burned out my first two within a year each, the third took a little longer. I got this one a while ago and I guess it's just starting to go out, why? How many have you gone through?" He finally turned to look at her, just to see what she was getting so agitated about.

"None! People are only supposed to get one, they're not supposed to burn out! You've had four?"

"Oh. Well, I could never really afford a nice one, I thought that was normal for the cheap kind."

"No, that is not normal at all, and neither is this," she said, expanding the usage display. "See? That's from our last flight. Almost the whole time we were in combat your link usage was at bare minimum."

"That's weird," Ichigo said, peering at the display.

"And you didn't experience any loss of connection to the ship, you even spiraled out your control through the nav system to guide a missile with your mind!"

"Yeah, that kinda thing is easy, but it wasn't what I was talking about."

"Easy? G-13 captains are the only people I've ever even heard of with that kind of neural link control! And you did this with yours, what's your neural sync ratio?"

"Oh, like a hundred percent, but that isn't really..."

"A hundre.. now I know you're lying, that would mean... that's totally impossible," Rukia said, dumbfounded. "I've never even heard of anyone with that high a ratio."

"Rukia, would you listen!" Ichigo interrupted. He yanked the display over and held it up in front of her. "This isn't my neural link usage chart, it's yours!"

Rukia's thin eyebrows drew together as she looked at what he was pointing at. Sure enough, she had accidentally pulled up her own usage chart. With a couple flicks of her finger, she pulled up Ichigo's, laying one over the other.

"What's that mean?" Ichigo asked, tracing his finger over the stretches of time where their neural link usage simultaneously approached zero.

"I don't know," Rukia said, "I don't remember anything out of the ordinary, but at some point we were in pass-through mode with the ship. Our links weren't doing anything other than facilitating a connection to the ship systems." She stood up and only then realized she was still holding his hand. Instead of digging her fingers into the pads of his palm, their fingers had entwined at some point. Ichigo noticed it as well before they awkwardly unclasped hands.

"Is that unusual? I mean, isn't that what the links are supposed to do?" he asked as he stood up as well.

"How could you have gone through four links and still have no idea how they work?" she asked. "They're supposed to serve as a layer, translating our biofeedback input into digital input, and turn around and take the computer's output and send it to our," she dramatically pointed at her eyes, "Ocular implants."

"But not for us, for a little while there. And we didn't notice," he said as they started walking towards the huge factory floor doors.

She gave him a very level look, amazed at how he could simply discard something so unusual.

He smirked. "C'mon, let's go down to the dry dock. I bet they're all waiting for us."

"Ichigo, wait. We still have a problem," she said as she came to a halt.

He stopped but didn't face her. "My link interference," he reasoned. He didn't need to see her nod to know he was correct. "You're concerned about flying with me if I'm dangerous."

"Ichigo, the way you fly... I've never seen anything like it, but..."

"Tell me, do you trust me?"

Rukia paused. He was giving her the choice. She thought back to their first meeting and most recent flight, recalling not the details but the confidence she felt as Ichigo handled the ship, the security of their new partnership even in such a brief time, the trust she had in him that came, as he said, naturally. "Yes," she answered in a small voice.

"Then I'd still like to pilot your ship a little while longer, if that's alright. And Rukia." He turned to look over his shoulder, his face lit by the yellow sodium lights giving him a pasty, sallow complexion. His eyes shined like gold instead of their usual brown. "If you feel in danger, if you think this... interference, is going to cost you your life," he said as he turned away from her again. "I want you to take that gun of yours and put a bullet in me."

Rukia watched him walk from the factory floor, his footfalls echoing across the enormous room like rolls of thunder.


	10. Fission

The two of them rode down the service elevator to the dry dock hangar in silence. Ichigo stood solemnly and stared down at the approaching hangar floor while Rukia leaned against one of the railings, staring at the retreating ceiling, arms crossed and withdrawn. The _Red Princess_ and the _Longbow_ sat side by side, the only lights in the enormous room shining down from the two ships and a few portables spread at their landing struts. A factory ship hangar like this would normally be a well lit place of constant motion, cargo being loaded, ships inspected, crews moving about in loader frames or on service vehicles. The stillness and pervasive gloom made the two ships seem that much more lonely as they arrived at the bottom deck.

They stepped off the elevator platform to see Uryu standing beneath his ship, a large power conduit coiling up from the service bay and connected to a socket near a landing strut above his head. Light was glinting off his glasses as he tapped out a sequence on an antiquated control console complete with physical buttons. As they approached, Ichigo noticed that the light wasn't reflecting off his glasses, it was coming from them. The lenses were alight with tiny readouts and scrolling information as Uryu fiddled with a dial and tapped a couple of the buttons.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked.

Ichigo noted that mild irritation must be a constant state of mind for him. "I was just noticing your link interface, that's all."

Uryu's mouth drew into a thin line. "This is not a neural link interface," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Oh, it must be some type of imaging layer then," Rukia guessed, also noting his glasses.

"No," he replied testily, "It has nothing to do neural links." He said the words with a slight sneer, as if they had an unpleasant taste. "Because I do not have one."

There was a brief pause. "Well, why not?" Ichigo asked.

"Ichigo," Rukia said lowly, "Don't you think that's rather personal?"

"No, it's quite alright Miss White," Uryu said. He reached up to unclamp the power conduit and dragged it back to the service bay, closing the grates up over it. "I do not have one because I find them to be repugnant and dehumanizing."

"Oh," Rukia replied, thrown off balance by his bluntness.

"By the look on your faces, I assume you two would naturally infer that everyone had one," Uryu said, brushing non-existent dust from his meticulous flight uniform. "As a member of the colonial navy, neural links are standard equipment," he said to Rukia. "And you've been flying a medical ship around the rim, last I heard. Neural links are prevalent among industrial ship crews," he said to Ichigo. "You'll find they are less common among the outer orbits than they are throughout the central four-and-six."

"I'm stationed on Karakura, and so is Ichigo," Rukia said. "It's basically on the border between the inner and outer orbits."

Uryu rolled his eyes. "Karakura Station is more like the central four-and-six than any place out here."

"I still don't get what you don't like about neural links," Ichigo said, "I mean, what's the big deal?"

"Tell me," Uryu said, fixing him with a steady gaze. "Your neural link and ocular implants are capable of displaying every color, hue and gradient in the visible light spectrum against the backs of your eyes, correct? And your cochlear implants can reproduce auditory signals directly into your inner ear with perfect clarity?" He stepped around them both without waiting for an answer. "Do you not see anything wrong with those two facts?"

"No, not really," Ichigo replied.

"Of course you don't. You have come to rely upon them, like a crutch. I doubt you could pilot your spacecraft without them. Tragically, as useful as you believe them to be it does not change the fact that they are unnecessary and unnatural. They corrupt the very perception of reality simply by performing the most innocuous of tasks." He turned back to them. "They tread unacceptably across what nature has designed, and their widespread acceptance yet casual disregard for the purity of the human experience is... troubling."

Rukia crossed her arms, her face set in a grimace. "You're anti-aug," she said definitively.

"Staunchly."

"Then you're a hypocrite," she accused. She watched him stiffen, his eyebrows twitch. "Your glasses afford the same functionality as our visual systems, the arms around your ears serve the same purpose as our audio systems, the collar of your uniform has a microphone built in and the gloves of your flightsuit contain monofilament accelerometers, allowing you to interface with standard neural display systems. The only difference is that you carry your computer on your belt and we have ours injected and self-assembled at the base of our brains."

Uryu frowned as he took a few steps towards them, close enough for them to see the display readouts and context information on the surface of his glasses. "I'm forced to incorporate various standards in the system I use, that does not mean I am a hypocrite." He reached up and tapped the arm of his glasses near his temple, the displays and readouts vanishing from the glass. "My computer system is now off, I'm perceiving reality only through my five human senses. Can you do the same?" He turned on his heel and walked away, again without awaiting an answer.

Ichigo looked down to Rukia to see a frown creasing her face. Her eyes were hard as she stared at Uryu's retreating back. He was about to ask her what she was thinking, and why she had accused Uryu of being anti-aug with such venom, when they were interrupted by Jinta.

"Hey, how ya feeling Sleepy?"

Ichigo furrowed his brow deeper and refused to respond.

"Did you get that stuff cleaned off the _Red Princess_ yet?" Rukia asked.

"Yeah, mostly. We also replaced that armor plating along the bottom of the interceptor. Gotta say it's nice not having to go over the entire thing like we normally have to." Jinta waved them over to the _Red Princess._ "Two Hollows usually means replacing half the damn armor and at least one of the wings."

Surprised, Ichigo shot a sly look at Rukia as she pointedly ignored him. They walked over to stand beneath the transport, Urahara and Yoruichi talking quietly as Ururu pried off another chunk of dried purple crust. Ichigo watched as Urahara leaned over to whisper something in her ear, to which she laughed musically while lightly touching his chest.

"Rukia," Ichigo said as they came near. "You said you knew what had caused all this, something in the hold of the _Sparrow Bee_?" He watched Yoruichi linger her hand against Urahara's chest as the pale haired man turned to regard them.

Urahara cleared his throat under the scrutinizing gazes of the two of them. Rather than appearing uncomfortable he simply waved a hand at Rukia. "Well, why don't you answer him?"

Rukia glared at Urahara while addressing Ichigo's question. "There really isn't very much left of Hollow ships after a combat engagement, they have a tendency to disintegrate or go critical mass when destroyed," she said. "Still," she said as she turned to Ichigo, "Sometimes there's enough left over to salvage and study."

"Which hasn't happened in a long time, so the few artifacts that exist are pretty important," Urahara said. "Can you guess who controls these artifacts, Ichigo?"

"I'm gonna go ahead and say... the G-13," he replied.

"Oh don't they wish, any branch of the colonial government that knows about them has been wanting to get their hands on them for years," Yoruichi said. "No, the Hollow artifacts are the tightly guarded property of the four noble houses. How else would you expect them to maintain such an antiquated notion as 'nobility' in an age like this?"

"So what do they do with them?" Ichigo asked.

"They originally were studied and reverse engineered, now they mostly sit locked up in high tech vaults and research labs," Yoruichi said. "At least, they would if they hadn't been stolen."

Rukia's eyebrows shot up. "You've stolen them all?" she stuttered.

"Of course not, I haven't truly stolen anything. You can't steal what already belongs to you," Yoruichi said, a smile curving her lips.

"Besides, the intel I've received says that the other three artifacts have already been stolen. We were very lucky to get the Shihoin Artifact at all," Urahara said, affording Yoruichi a sly smile.

"Already stolen? By whom?" Rukia asked, stepping up the loading platform of the _Red Princess_ on her way to the cargo hold.

"Who isn't as important as why," Urahara commented. "Though, we do think we're dealing with a single suspect. Based on their competency in obtaining all the other artifacts, a few things are for certain. They are highly motivated, dangerous, and will be after this one too." He watched Yoruichi stepped lightly onto the fuselage of the _Sparrow Bee_ and down through the canopy, making her way deeper into the back of the ship.

"If they're so rare and valuable, how come the theft hasn't been mentioned on the newsfeeds?" Ichigo asked.

"The noble houses can't be looking incompetent in front of the entire system," Urahara commented as Yoruichi made her way back out of the ship carrying a small metal cylinder. "They do have their own recovery methods mobilized though, which don't have to go through official navy security channels."

"That's it?" Ichigo asked, somewhat let down.

"No," Yoruichi said, unsealing the canister with a hiss and lifting it off the base. "This is." Beneath the shell she had removed was a complex lattice of thin struts, the juncture of each holding a powerful superconducting magnet. Held securely within the magrid was a small sphere of turquoise colored liquid.

"Outside the shields of the Shihoin research compound, this substance is capable of transmitting some type of carrier signal. It attracts Hollow ships like nothing you've seen, driving them to attempt to recover this little beauty above all else," Urahara explained.

"Then by my count, dangerous Hollows and a powerful thief will be looking for that item. If you would find my services useful, Princess Shihoin, I am at your disposal," Uryu said, snapping a quick bow.

Ichigo flinched, unaware Uryu had crept up next to him. He turned to look back at the violet haired woman as she carefully replaced the metal cylinder. "Princess Shihoin?"

"No one's called me that in a long time," she said, trading a look with Urahara. He had the decency to look momentarily abashed while she smiled back, unconcerned.

"Still, we need to find some way of shielding this device and we need to get the supplies we need to finally repair the interceptor's engine," Urahara said.

"Both of which we can do on Junrinan Two," Yoruichi said.

"You'll need a ship capable of reentry," Uryu mentioned.

"Yeah, the original plan was to take the _Sode no Shirayuki_ down on one engine and do the repairs planetside," Urahara said, rubbing his chin as he regarded the severe looking young man. "I'd really rather not do that though."

"It would be an honor to provide transport to a member of a noble house," Uryu said, looking at Yoruichi while answering Urahara's unspoken request. "Exiled as you may be. The _Longbow_ is ready whenever you are."

The five of them turned and headed down the length of the cargo hold, Urahara and Uryu leading while Rukia and Ichigo took up the rear. Ichigo ignored everyone else as they discussed their destination and turned to focus on Rukia. She had gone rather quiet and withdrawn at some point during the conversation.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Rukia looked up at him, catching his melted chocolate eyes with her own. She debated on what to tell him. The words he had said earlier were still fresh in her mind, the emotional toll they took on him still weighing down the lines of his face. She doubted he had ever truly confessed his guilt to anyone before, he would have kept it bottled up and hidden from his family as he piloted his father around as a self-imposed pariah. It was a peculiar sensation, the weight of this confession. He could have rationalized it away with the fact that he was just a kid, or that it was all an accident, but he hadn't.

"I'm... I grew up here," she admitted, hesitant to go further.

Ichigo stopped as well and turned to look at her. "On Junrinan?"

Rukia nodded haltingly. "It was just my sister and I, we were separated by the occupation and I grew up here, going from moon to moon until I enlisted in the colonial navy." She thought maybe this would make them even somehow. Confession for confession.

"Just you, all alone? Your parents...?"

Rukia shook her head fractionally. "Just me, all alone." She had never known her parents and her only concept of family came from her earliest fragments of memory when her sister had cared for her, and from the group she had fallen in with as she grew older. She let a smile touch her lips as she remembered them.

Ichigo looked down at her before smiling slightly himself. "You seem alright, I guess there's hope for me too. Coffee, combat, and childhood trauma, that's us." It was a hard topic to even touch lightly on, and he did his best to keep his voice even as he turned and continued walking.

She fell into step next to him. He hadn't pitied her, or tried to console her. He hadn't pried or questioned, he hadn't even changed the way he looked at her. He simply accepted without judgment or doubt. While he might not know the entire truth, Rukia still felt the burden of his confession lighten. She realized she was hoping his burden had lightened as well.

Uryu, Yoruichi, Rukia and Ichigo climbed aboard the _Longbow_ while Urahara, Jinta and Ururu remained on the factory ship to finish fine tuning the _Red Princess's_ reactor. Jinta had commented on taking a look at the _Sparow Bee_ and trying to fix the life support so that maybe her owner wouldn't kill them all, and had dragged Ururu along with him. Urahara was left alone at the bottom of the boarding ramp as Ichigo stepped aboard.

"Hey Ichigo," Urahara said, catching the younger man's eye from beneath his hat.

Ichigo paused and looked back down the ramp. A notice appeared in the corner of his vision as Urahara pressed something on his cane. "What's this?"

"Parts list for the ship, along with where you're supposed to go to get them."

"I've been meaning to ask," Ichigo said, "Who, on an outer orbit back alley moon, would have the necessary parts to fix a positron suspension drive chamber?"

If Urahara was concerned by, or even noticed, Ichigo's mild note of suspicion he didn't let it show. He tilted his hat to the side a bit and hitched a smile onto his face that didn't reach his eyes. "He's ex-G-13 with a lot of contacts and resources. He's out here specifically because it's beyond the reach of most of the colonial government so he can continue his... work."

"Sounds a lot like you then."

"Trust me," Urahara said, voice colder while still smiling, "We are nothing alike. The experiments this guy has done would give an ethics committee nightmares."

"So, a failed scientist on the fringe of nowhere is the only place we can go for parts?"

"I never said his experiments were failures," Urahara said lowly. "Only unethical." He let the ramifications of his statement sink in as he continued. "Now, I want you and Uryu to go to him and pick up the parts while Yoruichi and Rukia head to take care of the artifact."

"We're splitting up? You sure that's a good idea?"

"Junrinan Two is mostly harmless, you guy's will be fine. Yoruichi knows where to go, just do what she says." He poked the landing ramp control console with the tip of his cane, Ichigo and the ramp moving slowly up into the ship. "Have fun now!" he said as he waved at Ichigo, beginning to stoop to stare at him incredulously.

He turned and headed towards his own ship, looking through the large loading doors and down the cargo hold to see Jinta and Ururu scratching their heads as they peered at the _Sparrow Bee_. Behind him the _Longbow_ had lifted up and was moving towards the ship's huge airlock, gusting air blowing the cover off the console next to Urahara. Instead of dark and unpowered, it was humming with life, a series of cables connecting it to the transport.

"No rest for the wicked," Urahara muttered to himself as he tapped out the sequence to begin composing a long range communication.

* * *

The _Longbow_ streaked away from the derelict factory ship, the enormous planet of Junrinan looming in the large viewports and filling the cabin with a clear, if slightly blue, light. Far in the distance, bracketed by the nav computer on the front viewport, was Junrinan's second moon.

Uryu, strapped into the center console seat and surrounded by a large number of displays and control surfaces, cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, I don't usually have anyone else aboard. We'll be entering atmosphere in twelve minutes, please have a seat at any station and strap yourselves in."

Ichigo, Rukia, and Yoruichi, floating uncertainly at the rear of the bridge, nodded and moved carefully towards different seats. Ichigo noticed the ship itself was well cared for, if slightly old. It reminded him somewhat of the _Masaki_ , except the whole ship was as clean and sterile as his father's clinic deck. It had also clearly had been designed to be flown by a crew of at least three. Uryu had installed and rerouted a number of system displays and consoles over to the one central station. It also looked like Uryu performed all the ship maintenance himself. Ichigo revised his opinion of the guy upwards, slightly.

"This feels weird," Ichigo said as he strapped himself in, mostly to himself. "I usually am the one driving," he answered the looks of the other three as he laced his fingers and set them behind his head. "Nice to ride shotgun once in a while."

"A fitting phrase," Uryu commented, "You're at the tac station." He paused in sudden realization and quickly turned his head to Ichigo, catching the orange haired young man leaning to examine the console. "Don't touch anything." Ichigo smiled and leaned back, content to pass the rest of the trip with his eyes closed.

Junrinan's second moon inexorably drew nearer as Uryu angled the ship, making fine adjustments and enabling various system overlays to the main viewport. With the moon beginning to dominate the entire front viewport, several mechanical whirs and jarring clunks echoed through the ship. "Heat shields deployed and locked. Atmospheric contact in twenty seconds, beginning descent," Uryu said.

The _Longbow_ dropped through the upper atmosphere of Junrinan Two and careened along its deorbit and deceleration vector, the friction of the air against the heat shields enveloping the ship in fiery red-orange light as the sound of it roared in their ears. Rukia was staring out the side viewport when they all heard a quick, tearing bang.

"Was... was that the primary buffer panel?" Uryu asked, his lips drawing into a thin frown, his fingers flicking across the myriad of controls with practiced efficiency.

"It looked like it," Rukia answered, still looking to where the panel had flown past the viewport.

"The primary buffer panel just flew off your ship?" Ichigo asked, his eyes snapping open.

"I believe so," Rukia deadpanned.

"Not to worry," Uryu said. "I am confident I will still be able to get us on the ground."

"That part'll happen pretty definitely," Yoruichi muttered darkly.

The light died away as Uryu retracted the heat shields, the bumpy turbulence of reentry smoothing out as he engaged the air breathing engines and leveled off their angle of descent. "Atmospheric transition is complete, we'll be beneath the cloud level in a minute or so," he said confidently, unamused at their comments.

Rukia unbuckled her restraints and stood from the console. Smiling ridiculously to herself, she stretched her petite body, arching her back and relishing in the pull of actual natural gravity. She leaned over to one of the large viewports that ringed the bridge and watched as they punctured the thick and perpetual raincloud level, steam from the heated skin of the ship left curling in their wake.

Ichigo watched Rukia stretch and lean on the railing, feeling his mouth get dry as his eyes skimmed down the sweep of her back, past her narrow waist and right to where her toned thighs met her hips. Her flightsuit leggings, fitted to her compact frame but still loose and functional had been pulled tight against her, hugging her pert and slender curves. He watched her brush the strand of midnight hair over her ear, her arms bare again up to her shoulders, mesmerized by the interplay of muscles beneath her alabaster skin. The light changed throughout the cabin as they dipped down beneath the cloud layer, darker and more diffused. Instead of being treated to Rukia's toned soldier physique, she suddenly looked softer, her movements subtle and more graceful, a dancer instead of a warrior. No, he corrected himself, a dancer _and_ a warrior.

It was with some surprise, therefore, when he noticed Yoruichi sitting at the next console, her bright amber eyes boring into him as she studied his face. She must have washed and changed while he was unconscious, the streaks of ash were gone and her violet hair had been pulled to a tail at the nape of her neck. Ichigo felt his face begin to burn as she raised her eyebrows at him before swiveling around to look at Rukia's upturned rear, the petite covert operative blithely staring out the viewport as they rocketed along above the moon's surface. Yoruichi turned back to him, a sly grin spreading across her lips.

Ichigo drew his scowl down deeper into his face. "Urahara said to split up on the surface," he said, hoping to deflect her attention.

Unmoved by his attempt, Yoruichi leaned in closer towards him. "Just admiring the tail section, pilot?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes. There were far too many ship-centric metaphors nowadays, Yoruichi looked like she could probably rattle them off all day long. "He said you and Rukia would handle shielding the artifact while Ishida and I head to pick up the parts we need for the ship," Ichigo resolutely continued.

"She is a cute little slip of a thing, isn't she?" Yoruichi drawled, ignoring him. "Built a lot like that ship of hers." She let some heat into her voice, "Small and sleek, a little modest in the 'guns' department but perfectly respectable for her... chassis."

Far too many metaphors.

"Oh sure, she might look a little too serious up front," Yoruichi whispered lowly, "But I bet she's a _screamer_ once you have her engines racing."

Way, way too many. Ichigo cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. "Are you having fun?"

"Yes, of course," she smiled as she leaned back, "You, however, look uncomfortable."

"You're pretty perceptive," he said dryly.

"Don't know why you would be... unless." Her bright amber eyes lit up with barely contained mirth, "You two aren't..."

"No, we're not," Ichigo said quietly.

"Then what the hell were you doing together after you booted Uryu out of the room on his own supply ship?"

Ichigo gaped at her. "Is that what you... _all_ of you think? We talked, that's it." _Well, she pulled a gun on me too,_ he thought.

"Talked? You both are so oblivious," she said lowly, nudging his head with a finger. "You like looking at her so much, did you think she's standing that way on _accident?_ "

Ichigo scoffed at Yoruichi. "She's not interested in me," he said glancing back at Rukia. _All we do is bicker, unless we're flying her ship,_ he thought, _I blew any chance I might have had when I told her to shoot me._ He sighed, unable to keep the resignation from his voice, "All I am is her pilot." _Maybe it's better that way._

Rukia turned from her place at the viewport to catch Ichigo and Yoruichi talking privately, the smile on her face faltering slightly as she watched. Yoruichi was retracting her hand from his face, an amused expression gracing her lips as she leaned close to whisper something. Ichigo's face flushed slightly before he vehemently shook his head. Yoruichi's bright amber eyes flicked up to catch her own, the statuesque, violet-haired woman freezing a moment before leaning back away from Ichigo. He noticed her gaze and turned around as well, an awkward, guilty expression on his face. Rukia straightened up, her troubled expression slipping away as she composed her features into frosty indifference. She was spared from conversation as Uryu spoke from the central console.

"We'll be touching down on the Junrinan Two spaceport in five minutes, please prep for landing."

Rukia returned to her seat and buckled herself back in, her face remaining devoid of emotion as she forced herself to go over their objectives. Engine parts, shield the artifact, report her presence, the recent Hollow encounter and the status of her ship to G-13 local command. The last one would be marginally complicated, a point she was glad for since it kept her from dwelling on the absurd pang of jealousy she felt while watching Ichigo intimately talking to Yoruichi. It was ridiculous, she told herself, Ichigo was her pilot and nothing more. She carefully avoided all further thoughts on that line of reasoning as Uryu guided the ship to their landing point.

Ichigo noted the traffic above the Junrinan Two spaceport had no where near the degree of congestion Karakura Station typically suffered from as Uryu engaged the I-Grav landing system and gently coaxed the old warship down onto one of the various circular pads. The whine of the engines died away as he powered the reactor to standby, locked down the ship, lowered the boarding ramp and then stood from his console. Ichigo watched as he straightened his flight uniform and adjusted his glasses before walking purposefully from the bridge. Ichigo shot a perplexed look to Rukia but she didn't respond, only drawing her brows down slightly harder. Ichigo unbuckled his restraints and was rising from his seat when Uryu returned, bearing a large container.

"Junrinan Two has a decent atmosphere but a... unique weather situation," he explained. "I thought it prudent to supply you with appropriate attire. It would also make us all a little less," he shot a look to Ichigo's bright orange spikes and Yoruichi's long violet hair, "Conspicuous."

The four of them, wrapped in heavy cloaks, insulated jackets and thick rugged boots, soon trudged down the boarding ramp and onto the landing pad. The wind gusted as Uryu pressed a control raising the ramp back up, the frigid air slicing through their meager layers with a bone-chilling intensity. Light, slushy rain was drizzling down from iron gray clouds stretching in every direction, as if it was unsure whether to melt or freeze.

"Methane processing byproduct," Uryu said, indicating the constant rainfall. "Terraforming was too aggressive, produced too much water. They think it'll keep raining like this for another twenty years. Pull the filters up on the collars, it cuts down on the smell." Uryu reached up and slid a vented filter over his nose and mouth from the cowl of his pale cloak before heading down the pad's ramp to the lower levels, the bright blue cross emblazoned on his back fluttering in the wind.

Ichigo shifted the heavy brown cloak on his shoulders and pulled the filter over his face. "He may not be the most likable guy in the system," he said as he turned to Yoruichi and Rukia, only their eyes visible above their masks and below their hoods, "But he sure seems to know what he's doing." They all headed off the landing pad, trailing in the bespectacled man's wake.

Upon leaving the spaceport complex and heading into the settlement, one of the first things Ichigo noticed were the children. Spending far too much time cramped aboard the _Masaki_ with his father and sisters visiting industrial stations and mining ships, and then coming to Karakura Station populated almost entirely with adults, children had been a rare sight. He supposed it made sense, people naturally would want to provide a stable environment to raise kids in. Despite the numerous safety systems and failsafes, the prospect of raising a child in space versus on an actual planet or moon with natural gravity and breathable atmosphere was a no-brainer. He watched one particular kid, bundled up against the cold, jumping back and forth beneath one of the numerous covered pavilions trying to dodge fat drops of rain dripping off the awning.

"Yuichi! Yuichi Shibata come inside this instant!" The boy stopped his game and ran over to a doorway, quickly hustled inside.

The other thing Ichigo noticed was all the mud. In between paved walkways, raised platforms, staggered observation decks, and numerous catwalks connecting and encircling some of the taller structures were roads of thick gray mud. Enormous vehicles, some larger than the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , rolled slowly over them on their way back out beyond the settlement, carving deep ruts in the soft ground.

Rukia, on the other hand, had first noticed that more than half of the ships on the landing pads around them flagrantly displayed a number of weapon systems in clear violation of colonial law. She kept her observations silent though, and kept her cloak pulled tight across her shoulders. She knew it was extremely unlikely she would be recognized here of all places and after so many years, but it did not keep her from retreating further into the depths of her hood. They passed several grizzled and cloaked individuals, most of them also carrying personal weaponry, before Yoruichi indicated a relatively vacant pavilion.

"Alright, here's where we split up. You two," she turned to Ichigo and Uryu, "Head down to the place Urahara told you about. We are going to see if we can find some wrapping for our little package here. Keep link chatter to a minimum, most of the public channels are monitored. Meet back here in an hour." Gone was her playful and joking demeanor, a hardness in her eyes matched the steel in her voice.

Ichigo watched the two turn to go before pulling up the notice Urahara had sent him. "That way," he said, pointing. He saw Uryu nod and fall into step next to him. Looking askance at the dour figure beside him, he said, "I wouldn't have figured a guy like you, out here in the outer orbits, would care much about the noble houses. They're from the inner orbits."

"The noble houses are typically held in higher regard than the colonial government out here," Uryu replied, "When the government military established the occupation, the noble houses continued providing relief and aid." He turned to look at Ichigo. "Without their efforts the devastation we suffered could have been far worse."

"I guess," Ichigo replied.

"You guess?" Uryu said, slightly taken aback.

"Well yeah," he said stepping over a rain gutter running thick with sludgy water. "I mean, how do you know they weren't doing it just to be liked? It was obvious you didn't like the navy at the time, so they just did the opposite."

Uryu's thin lips twitched into a frown. "A public relief program designed to engender popular support among a disaffected population?"

"Uh, yeah."

"It has been mentioned before," Uryu said with a sniff, "However, what is important are the benefits the program provided. An enormous number of people were aided by the noble houses, not only through their generosity but by giving the people something to have faith in. Faith that not all was lost, that some authority still recognized them across the vastness of space separating the inner and outer orbits."

"Even though their motivations for doing it might have been kinda shady?" Ichigo asked.

Uryu sighed. "Yes. I would have to say that benefit to the people was more important than whether or not the noble houses acted truly altruistically."

"Does the same thing work for a person?" Ichigo asked as they walked along, their boots thunking against the walkway. "Is a benefit worth it, even if it comes from somewhere shady?"

"I suppose it would depend," Uryu said, uncertain where the conversation was headed.

"You're probably right, it would have to be up to the person to decide if something is worth where it comes from," Ichigo said. "Like neural links."

Uryu turned his head sharply at Ichigo. "I believe I have made my point of view very clear on that subject, and no amount of philosophical posturing will change my mind."

Ichigo laughed, waving slightly. "Relax, all I'm saying is they provide a benefit and it's up to you to decide if what they do is worth what they cost." He saw Uryu preparing to mutter. "Cost, as in more than just money."

"But the benefit can be had _without_ the cost," he argued, pointing to his glasses.

"A portion, maybe, but neural links can do more than just computer system connections."

Uryu scoffed. "You're referring to feelinks, aren't you?"

Ichigo didn't reply, just caught his eye from beneath his hood and allowed the other young man to continue.

"The very concept of them is ludicrous. They are nothing more than two computers getting confused by neural feedback, sending bioelectrical state to the wrong brain. The idea that this is somehow a profound event is naive at best, delusional at worst."

"So it would be safe to say you've never had one?"

Uryu glared at Ichigo from beneath his pale hood. "And it would safe to say that you have. Assuming these imparted emotions are somehow real, have you stopped to consider the fact that it implies you have the ability to experience emotion without stimulus?" He stopped walking to face Ichigo directly. "Where is the line between your own emotions and those fostered upon you by a fluke of neural technology? What good is it to feel an emotion if it was never yours in the first place?"

"It isn't about _taking_ an emotion and simply reading it like a display, Ishida," Ichigo said. His thoughts wandered back to the hazy memory of Rukia's fingers on his face, then further back to his first love and their clumsy but earnest experimentation. "It's about sharing an emotion, letting it grow and change as you experience it."

Uryu huffed and began walking again. "I prefer my emotional experiences to be how they were naturally intended."

The two of continued on in silence as they made their way down the last street. Stopping before their destination, the two of them gazed up at the sign in front with no small degree of concern.

"This is a chop-shop, Kurosaki. I'm not going in there," Uryu said.

"This is where Urahara said to go, I need those parts for the engine and I am not going in there alone." He said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath and grabbed the front of Uryu's cloak, dragging him up the walkway to the main door. "Just keep your hood up and no one will recognize you."

Uryu had a good look at the sign, lined with stubby waving tentacles and reading "Kurotsuchi Modifications," a grotesque human headed maggot mounted to the top, before he noticed the doors slide apart. The two of them paused as a figure emerged, a girl in a simple black shift and dark red choker looking down on them with sad, emerald eyes. Seemingly unconcerned by the frigid wind, she made a simple motion with one hand.

"Won't you please come inside?" she asked.

* * *

Meanwhile on the other side of the settlement, the two women walked along the muddy road, their thick boots trudging through the gritty grey dirt while their cloaks hung heavy in the damp air. Rukia checked her weapons while watching Yoruichi settle the metal canister against her side. The two traded a quick glance before continuing on.

"You spend quite a bit of time flying around Hollows, you ever see what's inside one of them?" Yoruichi asked.

Rukia paused a second before shaking her head, slightly surprised at the prospect of conversation at all, let alone on this topic. "I'm just an operative, the orders I get are pretty basic," she replied, making a trigger pulling motion with her finger.

Yoruichi quirked her lips behind her air filter. "Kisuke is still the only one I know who's seen one on the inside."

"Urahara's seen the inside of... how?" Rukia asked.

"Navy R and D department has managed some pretty weird stuff, not all of it fully disclosed," she said. "Anyway, he doesn't talk about it much," Yoruichi added, wistfully amused, "Not even to me."

"Why not?"

"He told me once it was unlike anything he had ever seen," she said, pushing a strand of violet hair from her face. "Like looking into the worst nightmare ever to come out of the Komamura program." Yoruichi didn't see Rukia's shudder at the name, a blacker spot than most in the colonial government's checkered past. "They have a body cavity, apparently. Kisuke said it looked vestigial because the entire interior is covered with biologics. He looked pretty green when he told me."

Rukia felt pretty green just hearing it. "I always thought they were more mechanical than that."

"Oh, they're mechanical, but it's like they grow instead of assemble."

Rukia looked over at the canister slung over the other woman's shoulder, rhythmically thumping against her hip as they walked. "Does that mean the artifacts, they're biological rather than technological?"

Yoruichi shrugged as they stopped at a crossroad, a massive vehicle rumbling past on tires as tall as they were. "This one would count for both," she said as she patted the container. "I'm told this stuff came from the brain of a Hollow." She walked on, leaving Rukia on the corner, a look of revulsion on her face. "It's just up ahead."

"I know," Rukia said, catching up to her and swallowing down her disgust at the origin of the Shihoin artifact.

"Yeah, of course you do," Yoruichi said somberly. The two women stopped at a large building on the outskirts of the settlement complex, an actual written sign out front. "I wish it didn't have to be this way."

"If anyone has what we need to shield that canister, it'll be her," Rukia said as she steeled herself and took the first step up to the building's door. As if on cue, they heard the heavy bolts being thrown open and the door swing wide.

"Well well, Yoruichi. It's been a long time my friend," said the woman as she stepped out and leaned into the doorway, a haughty smile on her face and a large weapon slung low on her hip.

Yoruichi pushed the cowl of her cloak back and shook out her long tresses. "How's the arms dealing business?"

"Keep it down or you'll spoil the irony," she said, patting the air, the servos and actuators of her artificial right arm whirring quietly. "Who's your friend?"

Rukia lifted the hood of her cloak back, her blue-violet eyes meeting the woman's as they widened. "Hello, Kukaku," she said gently. Kukaku immediately pushed herself off the door jam and quickly walked down the steps, a fire simmering in her eyes beneath messy black locks. Rukia braced herself, unsure if Kukaku meant to strike her and unwilling to defend herself if she did, so when she found herself enfolded in her arms Rukia hesitated before she gratefully returned the embrace.

"Hello Rukia," Kukaku said sadly. "Won't you please come inside?"


	11. Range of Enhancement

Uryu and Ichigo found themselves ushered into a small, dark entranceway. The girl slipped back inside, padding silently past them as they unclasped their cloaks and shook off the cold. Uryu frowned as he watched the girl, the thin material of her dress barely covering her. "You must be freezing," he said as he pulled the pale cloak from his shoulders.

She stopped and regarded him, her brilliant emerald eyes catching the meager light. Her lips parted to speak but she froze as Uryu swept the cloak around her, draping her in long warm folds of thermal cloth. Blinking in surprise, she quickly found her voice and said, "I assure you, that is not necessary." If a voice could be described as monotone and melodious simultaneously, it would be hers.

Despite her words, Ichigo could tell she was appreciative, even relieved. She also made no move to immediately return the cloak.

"Nemu!" called a harsh voice from further back in the building, "Who was it? You know I hate interruptions!" Not bothering to wait for an answer, the owner of the voice barged through a set of large metal doors and swept angrily into the room, freezing in place as he took in Ichigo and Uryu's appearances.

Beneath the heavy robes and mantle he wore Ichigo could tell he was thin, almost skeletal. Bare, paper-white arms ended in bony hands and his long fingers seemed to continuously flex and clench. Lank, disheveled indigo hair hung limply around his face as deep shadows pooled beneath his cheekbones and eyebrows even in the dim light. His cracked lips stretched into a sinister grin and Ichigo expected to see blackened, rotted teeth. However, as his lips stretched further he could see they were perfectly white and straight. _This guys has been aug'ed,_ Ichigo thought, _significantly aug'ed._

"They are customers, sir," Nemu said evenly.

"Of course they are, I can see perfectly fine you brainless tart," he spewed at her. "And what the hell are you wearing? Take that thing off this instant."

"That won't be necessary," Uryu said, parroting her earlier words and holding a hand out to stay her.

Ichigo could see Uryu staring daggers at the man, clearly affronted. For his part, the man seemed not to notice Uryu's anger as he pivoted his head back at them, his smile stretching into a disturbing caricature of geniality.

"Interesting," he said to himself. With a click one of his eyes rolled backwards in his head and another, larger pupil rolled up into place. "Neural link," he muttered as his eye moved over Ichigo, eerily independent of the other, "Nothing else." He turned to Uryu, his hairless brows twisting marginally in surprise. "Nothing, nothing at all, how fortuitous. Yes, yes I believe I can help you both a great deal."

Ichigo put a hand on Uryu's shoulder, commanding his attention. "Relax, we're here for business, not philosophical posturing," he said quietly to Uryu. He watched him marshal his emotions and twist his lips into a thin line, barely disguising his disgust with the proprietor of the establishment and his line of work.

"Nemu! Don't just stand there, open up the showroom!" he commanded before turning back to them and wringing his hands, his long fingers moving and flexing far beyond the range of normal.

"Of course, sir," she said as she glided out of the entranceway, depositing Uryu's cloak back over his arm as she passed. Upon entering the large room, a number of lights blinked into existence, throwing the showroom into stark contrast.

"As you can see, I offer a wide range of products and services," he said to them, his voice resuming a distant, analytical tone. "Many of which are my own personal design, rigorously tested of course, and unavailable anywhere else."

Like some macabre cross between a machine shop and a surgical operating theater, the large showroom floor was densely populated with displays showcasing every manner of prosthetic, implant, augmentation and bio-synthetic device Ichigo could imagine, and some he could never even dream of. He gulped as Nemu moved around the displays, activating holographic mode on a number of them, the harsh light cutting through the sheer material of her black dress and leaving very little to the imagination.

"Yes, impressive isn't it?" he asked, oil practically dripping from his voice, "The range of expandability of the human body is truly amazing." He made a small motion with one hand and the display nearest them shimmered, resolving into a rough approximation of the human body. He made another motion and overlayed the image with dozens of options, each pointing at various body parts, contextual and visual information filling the display area. "Now, what can I interest you in? Arms? Legs? Spine? Perhaps partial reconstruction?"

"I think I'm going to be sick Kurosaki," Uryu said.

"Keep it together man," he muttered. "We're not here for prosthetics," Ichigo said, attempting to get the doctor's attention.

"Augmentation then? Excellent, I do so thoroughly enjoy these new advancements." The display shimmered and returned with an enormous list of titles and effects. "So simple to install and yet they have such remarkable effects. Which market are you gentlemen interested in? Optical processing? Biologic override? Self-defense?" He eyed them speculatively, "Physical enhancement?"

"Uh," Ichigo stammered.

"Nemu!" he shouted, "Come here!"

Ichigo found himself staring at the ground as she walked across the large showroom floor, embarrassed for her. The dress fell only to the tops of her smooth, flawless thighs, swishing gently back and forth to the sway of her hips. Ichigo realized with sudden clarity that such unearthly grace, such finely measured proportions and such carefully sculpted features, taken as a whole, we're surely artificial. However, it did nothing to lessen their impact and Ichigo felt safer staring at the ground than at her directly. At the main display she stopped walking and stood with her hands clasped behind her back, the pose putting her body proudly on display but her eyes remained downcast and lifeless. "Yes, Doctor Kurotsuchi?"

"Nemu here has a number of augmentations and bio-synth replacements," he explained, "Don't you, Nemu?"

"Yes... Doctor Kurotsuchi."

"These are some of my own special designs," he said, eyes glinting with excitement or malice, Ichigo couldn't tell. "Show them, my dear," he purred. He produced a large round fruit from a pocket and tossed it to her.

Watching the ripe fruit sail through air and land in the girl's dainty hands forced Ichigo to realize how hungry he was getting, he hadn't had anything to eat since lunch with Rukia on the _Red Princess_. He pulled his eyes up to her face, no easy task, where he noticed a well concealed look of trepidation hiding at the edges of her eyes. She shifted the fruit to one hand and held the other up in front of her, her fingertips pressed tightly together. Her eyes flicked to Kurotsuchi's, Ichigo catching his narrow dangerously, before she silently bit her lower lip and forced her fingers apart. The room was filled with the sound of loud, buzzing cracks as arcs of electricity climbed up Nemu's fingers as if they were Jacob's ladders. A few seconds later the sound and light died away as she shut off the effect, leaving only the sharp tang of ozone in the air, before putting the large fruit into that hand and holding it aloft with her fingertips. She grimaced briefly as she tensed her fingers, gently squeezing the fruit. There was a wet, muffled zap followed by tendrils of thick, acrid smoke rising from the points where her fingers touched its skin.

"Adjustable up to nine hundred thousand volts with an unlocked amperage control module," he told them slyly, "Depending on battery option of course." He took the fruit and held it up, holes seared through the flesh clear to the other side. "Nemu, the other hand."

She hesitated, lightly touching the red choker at her neck, real anxiety beginning to show on her face. "Sir, I..."

"Now!" he snarled.

"No, that's not..." Ichigo began, but stopped as Nemu dropped her first hand, black scorch marks and red, angry blisters appearing on her fingers. She raised her other hand and tensed her shoulders. She turned her hand slightly and Ichigo watched in frozen horror as she closed her watery emerald eyes, her pale pink fingernails catching the light. She whimpered as they lifted from their beds with a sticky, peeling sound. Before Ichigo could protest, Kurotsuchi tossed the ruined fruit into the air. At the top of its arch Nemu flicked her arm at it. The air between her and the fruit sparkled for an instant, thin lines quickly criss-crossing its skin. She gave a sharp tug to her fingers as the fruit began to fall and it seemingly sliced itself apart, splattering her with bright red juice. She stifled another tiny cry, her fingers shaking as long, thin strands of cabling rushed back up beneath her fingernails.

"Amazing aren't they?" he said, "So much more personal and elegant than a crude firearm. And to think they are only the begi-"

"That is enough!" Ichigo said, shaking with anger at what the poor girl was forced to endure, livid as he saw beads of blood dripping from the fingertips of the hand she cradled to her chest. "We didn't come here for bio-mods!"

"If you came here for Nemu, she isn't available for another three hours. For the two of you it would naturally be twice her standard hourly rate."

"I am going to kill this man, Kurosaki," Uryu said.

"We came here for these," Ichigo said angrily, slapping a hand against the hardwire pad of the main display. The screen went black and the long list of components Urahara had provided shimmered into view.

Kurotsuchi leaned over impossibly far and craned his neck at the list. "Engine parts?" He examined the list more thoroughly before turning back to Ichigo, his grin vanished as his eyes narrowed. "Who sent you here?" he demanded.

"It's not important," Ichigo immediately replied. "We just want the parts and then we'll be on our way."

Kurotsuchi stared unblinkingly at Ichigo for a long moment before answering. "No."

Ichigo narrowed his eyes, his patience all but exhausted. "No?"

"You have wasted my time, demanded parts for a very specific type of engine and refused to answer my only question," he said evenly. "You'll get nothing."

"Let's go, Kurosaki. This is a waste of time, he doesn't have what we need," Uryu said from beside Nemu. He had offered his cloak again to her and was now assisting her in cleaning the red juice from her face.

Incensed, Kurotsuchi wheeled on him. "I most certainly do, and I can assure you that I am the only one out here who does," he spat.

"We're not here to satisfy your requests," Uryu said, his eyes flashing. He drew himself up and squared his shoulders at Kurotsuchi.

"Yes," he hissed, "And what exactly _are_ you here for, Bowman? Oh I know exactly who you are and I know exactly what an infantile, narrow-minded opinion you have of this." He wrapped a hand around Nemu's neck and dragged her over. "The advancement of the human race, standing before you, and you have audacity to turn up your nose? You're nothing but a pitiful luddite!" A savage gleam came to his eye, "Which makes you an excellent case study." He flicked his index finger into the air, a wicked scalpel blade slicing up through the skin. "Finally, I'll have a baseline for comparison!"

"You'll find that easier said than done," Uryu promised him. "Ichigo, I know we came here with a purpose, but I cannot simply abandon my principles for your convenience in the face of such depravity."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't ask you to," Ichigo said as he stepped up shoulder to shoulder with Uryu. He kept his eyes on the doctor but saw Uryu's momentary look of surprise, followed swiftly by a grim nod, in his periphery.

Kurotsuchi grinned wider, scalpel blades extending from the other four fingers on that hand. "Oh, the things I could learn from you two. Nemu, prepare the lab to receive new patients."

"You had to pick a fight with a fucking mad man? We haven't even been on this moon a whole goddamn day and we're starting a war with the locals," Ichigo said under his breath.

Uryu rubbed his fingers together, wondering how fast the doctor could be and if he'd have time to reach a weapon. Drool was beginning to gather at the edges of Kurotsuchi's mouth and his voluminous robes seemed to twist and writhe. Uryu was suddenly very sure he did not want to know what kind of abomination the doctor had obviously transformed himself into, but he had a feeling he was about to find out regardless.

"Please, answer him," whispered a voice behind them. "It would be better if you just did as he requested." Nemu had silently slipped around behind them, pressing herself ever so slightly to their backs, her head tipped up to whisper in both of their ears at once.

Ichigo glanced back but instantly wished he hadn't, the curves of her neck and shoulder down to the valley between her breasts could make a lesser man crumble. "Fine," Ichigo sighed at Kurotsuchi. "Kisuke Urahara sent us, satisfied?"

His entire demeanor changed. Eager bloodthirst turned to disbelief, quickly replaced by hysterical elation teetering somewhere on the edge of madness. "Kisuke Urahara sent you to me?" he said, almost bubbling with excitement. "Ah, of course he would send you to me," he said as his gaze settled on Ichigo. "The Captain always knew how to recognize talent, always knew the _best_ man for a job. I'll play Urahara's little game, but he should know better than to let his experiments go walking around free."

"Experiments, what are you talking about?" Ichigo asked, thrown off by his sudden change.

Kurotsuchi tsked, clicking his tongue. "Do not concern yourself with that." The blades on his fingertips slid away as he walked quickly over to the large display listing the parts they needed for the ship. "Nemu, get them whatever they want, strip the _Jizo_ if you must," he said unconcernedly, "Get moving, idiot girl!" He bent down and peered at the hardwire pad before muttering, "Yes... yes I think we have everything we need for this project."

Ichigo couldn't help his recoil of disgust as Kurotsuchi wetly licked the hardwire pad, smacking his lips and contemplating the taste. "Now I'm gonna be sick," he muttered at Uryu.

"Tell Captain Urahara it is my very great pleasure to do as he requests, his recognition of my superiority in this field is long overdue," and with that, he quickly left the room. "Nemu! I'll be in my laboratory, do not disturb me!"

Feeling as if he'd been left in the dark, Ichigo stared after Kurotsuchi as the large metal doors swung shut. "What the fuck just happened?"

"Wait," Uryu said as Nemu began heading towards another door. "You knew that he would act that way if we mentioned Urahara. Ichigo has a point, crude as it might be."

Nemu turned back towards them, Uryu's cloak casually open down her front but her emerald eyes once again downcast. "I will go collect the items you requested," she said before her eyes glanced up to Uryu's. "I am glad that you did not become Doctor Kurotsuchi's lab subjects. Please wait here."

"Keep the cloak," Uryu called to her as she slipped from the room. "I've, uh... got a spare," he finished lamely.

"I still don't know what just happened," Ichigo said, scowling at the door Kurotsuchi left through.

"Well, it can't be too complicated," Uryu said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "It's obvious Kurotsuchi knows Urahara, they possibly even had some type of professional relationship based on the fact he called him 'Captain' and that he said Urahara could always recognize his... talent."

"He acted like just being sent here by Urahara meant something important," Ichigo said, unable to keep from examining several of the displays. "He said his recognition was overdue, and that it was obvious to him why he had sent us here. Some type of scientific request, he said."

"Maybe it was. He does seem to be a," Uryu swallowed dryly, "Bio-modification expert, and of the two of us, you're the only one with anything installed. Is there anything strange about your neural link that would prompt Urahara to send us here?"

Ichigo froze, comprehension dawning on his face. He looked back at the large metal doors the doctor exited through, realizing that he had unintentionally supplied a DNA sample as well as link interface signature when he had touched the display. _Did Urahara really send us here on purpose, just so Kurotsuchi could examine my neural link,_ he thought, _how could he even know?_ "Could always recognize talent, best man for the job," Ichigo muttered to himself, mulling over the possible interpretations.

"I don't think he's still a man," Uryu said, also looking at the large metal doors.

Ichigo chuckled to cover his growing unease, running a hand through his spiky hair. The main display near them went blank, changing into a grainy video feed. Nemu moved into frame, her upper torso filling the display screen as her brilliant emerald eyes shined down on them.

"Several of the components required are too large to be feasibly transported on foot," she said. "Your order will be delivered to the _Longbow_ instead. I trust this will be acceptable."

Realizing they had been subtly told to leave, the two of them wasted no time heading back out into the dim gray light of Junrinan Two, making their way back to the pavilion they had last seen Rukia and Yoruichi. Ichigo was about to recommend getting something to eat to quell his angry stomach when an aggressively styled all-terrain vehicle came rumbling to a stop, mud caking its large tires and spattering an identification plate that read 'B0NN1E'.

"Is that a Warthog?" Ichigo asked. "I didn't know they still made those."

Yoruichi stood up through the roof and leaned over provocatively. "Hey guys," she mock purred, "Get lucky?"

Ichigo watched Rukia lean from the driver's seat, a soft smile at the corners of her lips. "Hey Rukia," he said. "Nice wheels."

"Hey Ichigo," she replied, patting the door of the heavy vehicle. "Loaner from an old friend. You want to get something to eat?"

Ichigo groaned as he climbed up into the rear seats, his mouth beginning to water. "I could kiss you."

"Well then, I'll take that as a 'yes'," Rukia said, facing forward and putting the vehicle in gear, thankful that the dim light inside the cab hid her slightly pink cheeks.

* * *

The light was just beginning to fade as they stepped out of the small restaurant, the iron gray of the clouds changing to dark and ominous blue-black, heavy with rain and roiling at the far end of the horizon. Yoruichi had returned to Kukaku's and Uryu had gone back to his ship to await the engine component delivery, leaving Ichigo and Rukia alone at the restaurant. Ichigo was initially reminded of a similar situation not long ago, stuck at a cafe table with his ex-girlfriend. However, as the two of them sat there chatting quietly over dinner and coffee, the day fading around them, that feeling of awkwardness never seemed to take hold.

"I still can't believe the two of you were ready to take on a guy brimming with augs, what were you thinking?" she said as they stepped down to the walkway, laughing lightly as he recounted their experience.

"I don't think we were," Ichigo admitted.

"Do you even have a weapon?" Rukia asked, reaching over and pulling open his heavy brown cloak, checking for shoulder or hip holsters. She watched him smile ruefully and shake his head. "What were you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm sure I would have thought of something," he replied with a shrug. He could tell she didn't know if he was joking or serious. Truthfully, neither did he.

"Dropped into 'save the girl' mode?" Rukia teased, her blue-violet eyes sparkling in the gathering twilight.

Ichigo scoffed but didn't refute her. She, better than anyone, knew it was hard to make a life out here. And even then, sometimes the life you manage to make still sucks. "Uryu's really the one who looked the gallant hero," Ichigo said. He saw her prompting glance before continuing, "Gave his cloak to the girl, was willing to fight the monster."

"Not you though?" she asked, slightly perplexed.

"Oh, I would have, trust me this guy has it coming, but I can't give monologues nearly as well as Ishida can."

"You're going to need a big shiny sword if you're going to fight monsters," she laughed. "What about the girl?" Remembering his description of her, she continued in a carefully neutral tone, "Wasn't your type?"

Ichigo thought back to the carefully composed blank look on Nemu's face, her intense emerald eyes perpetually downcast in resignation, the wordless obedience with which she carried out Kurotsuchi's orders. He looked back at Rukia, smart, witty, and fearless. "No, my type is a little different."

"Oh," Rukia replied, deflating slightly. Petite and slender with dark hair and pale skin, Rukia couldn't help but draw comparisons. "A girl that modified, I suppose Uryu didn't rescue her either. Your story needs a better ending."

Ichigo screwed up his eyebrows as he considered it. "You know, he couldn't really keep his eyes off her, and she did mention she was happy he didn't die, or get experimented on. She kept his cloak too."

"Alright, it's getting better," she said, thankful to be able to lighten the mood.

"Think so? That's probably why he's waiting for her at the ship, too out of practice to make a first move, being stuck on it alone for so long and all." Ichigo was still pretty sure they were talking about Uryu, but this was hitting a little close to home.

"I'm happy you didn't die, or get experimented on too," Rukia said. She realized too late that in the context of their conversation what she had said could be interpreted as... ah screw it. She was feeling much too relieved and comfortable to bring herself to care if Ichigo interpreted it in any particular way. Away from the omnipresent stress of living in space, the most inhospitable place to live imaginable, she couldn't help but let her guard down a little.

Ichigo's brain froze a second. He glanced down to her walking at his side but her hood and air filter were pulled up, making it impossible to read anything but her eyes. Their pleasant dinner and walk making him a bit more secure, he took a slight gamble. "Maybe I should offer you my cloak?"

"If you did, you'd freeze to death," she replied tersely. It took a second for her to realize her clinical answer may not have been what he was aiming for. She rolled her eyes at herself, she was clearly out of practice at flirting.

"But that would mean you would take it, if I offered," Ichigo said, finding a kink in her answer. "How's the story now?"

Rukia's heart thudded heavily as she cleared her throat. "I'm liking it more and more," she said, a smile slipping onto her face. The two walked on in the deepening gloom, wandering vaguely back towards the ship. The streets were rapidly becoming deserted as planetset would bring on more severe weather, storm shutters and massive, heavy doors swinging closed across the settlement.

They turned onto a high walkway leading back to spaceport, the sky open before them in a sweeping panorama. "I haven't been planetside in, I can't remember. Look," she said pointing to the sky. Junrinan Two was slowly turning away from the bright face of its parent gas planet, the main source of light during the day, but across the sky from planetset the far away twin suns were rising, their faint light still enough to set the clouds aglow in reds, oranges and violets. "That's not something you can find in space." She pushed the cowl of her cloak back and shook out her short midnight hair, letting it dance about her shoulders before tipping her head back to feel the light, cold drizzle against her skin. "There's no rain in space either."

He pushed the cowl of his cloak back as well, smiling up at the darkening clouds and feeling the chilly rain patter against his face. He looked back down to her, tiny beads of rainwater caught the fire from the red-tinged horizon before sliding down the warm skin of her cheek, over her chin and down her neck. The sparks in those raindrops paled in comparison when she opened her eyes again, their blue-violet seeming to catch the colors of the coming storms at the horizon rather than the fiery light of the rising suns.

"You can find all kinds of beautiful things in space," Ichigo said quietly, caught in the limitless depths of those eyes.

Rukia felt her heart thud heavily again. "You'll have to show me some time," she replied. She looked up to catch him staring down at her, the hard lines of his face softening gently into a shy smile. It vanished in a moment, as if his mouth wasn't used to contorting that way, but remained in his eyes. The momentary spell was broken when Ichigo turned his head marginally and looked away, his brows knit back into hard angles.

In a single motion, Ichigo guided them from the wide, main walkway onto a sheltered sidewalk, two buildings rising up on either side. Engulfed in the sudden shadows, Ichigo quickly stepped up to Rukia, her shoulders leaning lightly against the wall as his hands slipped beneath the folds of her cloak and slid around her back, pulling her body closer. His chin at the side of her head dipped lower and grazed across her earlobe, his lips buried deep in her glossy midnight hair.

Heart pounding, her hands nimbly slipped inside his own cloak but rather than push him away, they treacherously fisted into the material of his jacket, locking him in place. "Ichigo!" she gasped, her eyes widening as she felt a cool draft of air up her spine, his hand diving up the back of her jacket to touch the bare skin between her pressure shirt and the waistline of her pants. She felt a tightening sensation across her body that had nothing to do with the sharp chill of the air as he smoothed his hand against the small of her back. He whispered something into her hair, his warm breath playfully caressing the skin at the base of her hair, distracting her enough that it took a second for her to register what he'd said.

"We're being followed."


	12. Temperature is Relative

She wanted to deny it, but the look on his face out of the corner of her eye told her Ichigo was being deathly serious. Rukia quickly began to compartmentalize her responses to the situation. She shut away the warm thoughts she had started to have, the tingles across her body as his hands slid along her skin and the breathless anticipation she felt as he held her close. Along with those she shut away her confusion on just how much of this conversation had been real, her surprise at how uncharacteristically responsive her body was to his touch, her embarrassment at how quickly she had been willing to indulge those responses and her utter mortification that she hadn't noticed they were being followed first. Finally, she shut away a sense of guilt that wasn't completely her own, but still nagged at her; a Kuchiki did not act this way. All that she left on the surface were the two skills she employed most often in the course of her job, tactical assessment and her consummate skills as an actress.

Ichigo noted the sudden change in her as she quickly slid one of her hands up to the back of his head, tipped her chin back to expose a mile of silken, cream colored skin from her ear to the collar of her cloak, and brought his lips down to the column of her neck. He noted the change, but was suddenly in no hurry to do anything but breathe in the scent of her shampoo and feel her fingers winding in his hair.

Eyes carefully lidded, she scanned the walkway they had turned from. "I see him," she whispered, watching a figure step into view, pause a second as though surprised, and then quickly recover by heading on past the side walkway. She felt Ichigo open a neural connection to her through the tips of his fingers and she silently praised his decision to not use a local wireless link. She let her vision overlay with her tactical system, parsing through the data Ichigo had collected and had waiting for her.

"He doesn't know he's been made," Ichigo murmured, seeing very clearly the tiny hairs along the back of her neck stand on end.

"He'll walk past again in about twenty seconds," Rukia said in a breathy stage whisper, "One of my weapons is right near your hand." She felt his hand shift and her act almost faltered. "Up _above_ your hand, not below it."

He moved his hand from the seat of her pants back up above the small of her back, locating a heavy holster. "We can't risk a gunfight in the middle town, there are kids here."

"You're right," she whispered, turning back to him, her lips barely brushing against his own. "But you should _take_ it, if you want it."

Ichigo knew it was an act, he had watched her take on this fake persona as they played out their little scene to buy time. Still, he couldn't help but feel the delicious heat from her words, a low fire that had started simmering long before they had wound up down this side walkway. He wondered for a moment, hesitant to take advantage of the situation and ruin that fire he had seen building within her. The slight pressure of her fingers through his hair pulling him forward dissolved the last of his doubts and Ichigo slid his lips firmly against hers, reveling in their flower petal softness and the tiny hint of cinnamon.

It was not an earth-shattering, time-warping, mind-bending kiss. They were both too outwardly focused on whoever was tailing them to really concentrate or let it deepen. That didn't stop Rukia's body from firing an excited little shiver down her spine as she felt her bottom lip being lightly captured between his. Rukia lifted one of her legs and wrapped it securely around Ichigo's hip, purely so she could surreptitiously reach her other weapon. At least, that's what she told herself.

Rukia saw the figure following them walk back across their line of sight on another walkway across the street. She immediately opened a display connection pointing him out, securely bracketing him in her targeting overlay. She felt Ichigo nod gently, and as soon as the figure stepped back behind the edge of a building they broke apart, Ichigo sliding the weapon from the small of her back as she drew her other from the side of her leg. With a shared, slightly flushed look, they turned and sprinted down the narrow side walkway, working at getting as much distance from whoever was following them as they could.

It was their bad luck that the side walkway was effectively a long and straight shot down the gap between the backs of two rows of buildings, their rear entrances all heavily secured against the coming storm. Their running footsteps must have alerted the cloaked figure, Ichigo hearing a muffled curse from the mouth of the alley. He looked over his shoulder to see them give chase, water splashing up from puddles as the figure came running after them.

"Plan?" he asked as they ran.

"Figure out who's chasing us and why," Rukia replied between breaths.

"Who knows we're here?" Ichigo asked.

"Urahara," Rukia began as she vaulted over a large container of refuse. "The Shibas, Uryu."

"The doctor, Kurot-something," Ichigo added.

"Any of them seem likely to put a tail on us? Who else would?"

"Someone looking for the artifact?" Ichigo guessed.

"If so, that's a good thing," Rukia said, "It means they'd need us alive."

"Oh good, I was worried there for a min-," Ichigo's breath was forced from his lungs as she pivoted and slammed into him, knocking him hard to the ground behind another large metal container. Loud whirring sounds tore through air as hundreds of metal fletchets sliced into the heavy wall he had been running next to, leaving a jagged line and a cloud of choking dust.

"New plan," Rukia said, her neural link computing the rooftop gunner's position. One-handed and half prone on top of Ichigo's sprawled, lanky form, Rukia lifted her weapon and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash lit up the dingy walkway like a bolt of blue lightning but the gunfire report was heavy and metallic as it echoed between the buildings. Confidently, Rukia spun back out and aimed down the walkway at their original pursuer as she lifted her other hand to cup the bottom of the weapon grip. Shifting her weight slightly, she smoothly inhaled as she sited her target, then squeezed the trigger again. Another burst of blue light flooded the walkway while the loud, heavy slam of the report rang in their ears.

Ichigo stood, alternating glances between the end of the alley, the rooftop, and Rukia. Her eyes were as hard and cold as ice, a sharp contrast from the smoke rising from the heated barrel of the weapon she still had leveled down the alley. The falling rain had begun to soak them both and her hair was starting to plaster to her head as she slowly exhaled, her breath turning to mist on her lips. She was shivering, either from the freezing cold or the surge adrenalin. A noise caught his attention and he turned back down the alley as a number of figures appeared in the gathering darkness, all cautiously approaching, glints of metal shining through the rain and darkness.

"Run!" Rukia said, grabbing the hem of his cloak and hauling him after her. There was no way they'd survive against that many, not without an unacceptable amount of collateral damage.

As Ichigo fell into step behind her he tried to erase the image of her seared into his eyes by the muzzle flash. That was the drawback to being a warrior, he thought grimly. As graceful as she was, as beautiful as the lines of her body might be, war wasn't pretty. He felt the weapon in his hand grow heavy as he ran, realizing that if she hadn't pushed him down, he'd be dead. If she hadn't fired at the fletchet gunner on the rooftop, they'd both be dead. It may not have been pretty, but he couldn't deny that it had been necessary.

He caught movement out the corner of his eye, another group was shadowing them down the other side of the buildings. Ichigo could well imagine the consequences if the two groups managed to pin them down in the narrow alley. "Rukia! There's more of them to the side!" he yelled, hoping she heard him. The rain had increased in the darkness of planetset, the only lights around being the few security lamps haphazardly spread across the walkways and the faint red glow of the clouds lit by the suns on the horizon. They came to an intersection and slid to a stop.

They shared a look that pointedly asked the other 'Where to?' when cracks of gunfire erupted, pock marking the walls above their heads. They dove down a side catwalk, the metal grating pounding beneath their feet. Turning a final corner they found it opened up onto one of the wide walkways above one of the main streets through the settlement. Below them, the surface had become a torrential river of mud and the gale force winds were whipping down past the buildings as if it were gusting through a canyon. They were almost dragged off their feet by their cloaks and were forced to pull them off and let them get carried away into the night.

"There!" Ichigo said, pointing across at the lone doorway with a sign still lit above it, literally a beacon in the storm.

Rukia couldn't hear him but saw him pointing across the street to an unbarred doorway. The only way across was a single, narrow metal catwalk that would take them out directly into the middle of the storm. She nodded before putting her gun back in its holster, her numbing fingers wouldn't be able to fire accurately and she didn't want to risk dropping it. She took a deep breath and laced her fingers with his before the two of them ran out towards the high crossway.

They made good progress up until when they were about halfway across. It was then that the group pursuing them emerged from the catwalk they had taken and pointed them out, fully exposed as they headed to the other side. They kept their heads down, as much to avoid the gunfire as to not be blown away by the wind, and struggled to keep their feet beneath them. Ichigo felt a sharp yank at his sleeve as the wind capriciously shifted direction, pulling him further off balance and sending him stumbling down to the metal surface of the catwalk. Half blinded by the slashing wind and driving rain, he still managed to see Rukia's look of concern as she tugged him back to his feet.

The two of them scrambled down off the far side of the catwalk, the wind hammering hard into them as they struggled to get to the relative shelter of the building's facing walls. Seizing upon an idea, Ichigo lifted the weapon he still clutched in his hand and tried to aim, his fingers feeling frozen even inside his gloves. He steadied the heavy gun and gently squeezed the trigger, the immense recoil almost knocking it from his hand. His entire arm feeling numb in an all new way, he looked to see the catwalk begin to buckle, weakened from the enormous hole he had put through one of the main support structures. The figures across the way retreated as the walkway started to twist under the strain from the wind. With a tearing, snapping sound the walkway wrenched itself loose and fell to the river of mud below.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" Rukia shouted at him.

"I saw it in a movie once!" Ichigo shouted in response, shakily handing her gun back to her. She gave him an uncomprehending look, her sparkling blue-violet eyes drawn up in confusion. He grabbed her hand and dragged her down another alley as the figures across the way began firing again, bullets zipping through the rain and cracking into the walls behind them. Ducking back into the darkness, they waited patiently until their pursuers across the way retreated. They hoped they were giving up rather than looking for another way across, but they didn't want to risk being seen and further hunted. Once reasonably sure they were alone, the two of them moved as quickly as they could to the unbarred doorway, shouldering it open and collapsing against it, pressing the storm lock control as soon as they could.

The howling wind muffled by the thick walls, Ichigo could hear their labored breathing as they leaned gratefully against the heavy door. He pushed the freezing rainwater from his brow, blinking as he looked around the empty, semi-darkened room they were in. A sign on the far wall above an enormous tiered rack laden with various bottles read 'The Hanging Dog'.

"I think we're in a b-b-bar," he said through chattering teeth. "If we d-d-don't warm up we're still going to end up d-d-dead, Rukia."

"I'll f-f-find some blankets," Rukia replied, pulling her gloves off with her teeth and dropping them to the ground. "G-g-get that heater g-g-going," she said, tossing her head at a large portable machine off to the side.

Ichigo pulled his jacket off, forced to visually monitor the movements of his unfeeling fingers as he undid the seal and zippers. He shambled over to the space heater to find, thankfully, it was already on, just turned down to low. Poking the control with the tip of his finger, he pushed the heater to full and warm air was soon spilling out of the vents. A pile of blankets landed next to him as Rukia slumped to her knees, working at the catches of her weapon harness.

"I c-c-can't g-g-get..." Rukia mumbled, her fingers unable to find purchase. Ichigo had already moved towards her, reaching out to help her unclip the buckles and lift it from her shoulders. She unzipped her jacket and yanked it off, tossing it aside as she fell back and kicked her heavy, water-logged boots and socks off. Her fingers went to the belt at her waist but paused, her eyes meeting Ichigo's. A mute understanding of their lack of options and went between them.

Setting modesty aside, she hurriedly worked the clasp on her pants and hooked her thumbs into the waistbands of everything she wore, pulling them down past her hips before Ichigo grasped it and slid them down her legs. Gasping and shaking from the severe temperature change, she managed to work her knees back under her and peel her pressure shirt up over her head. She gathered a blanket about her shoulders as used another to dry her hair, looking up in time to see a shirtless Ichigo unclip the fasteners at his waist and shuck every layer of drenched material down his muscled legs. Their motions spurred by survival instinct, he seated himself cross-legged next to the heater and pulled a number of blankets around his shoulders as she sat down on his lap, her legs wrapped securely around him. She saw him wince before realizing and leaned back, clumsily unclasping her cold, wet bra and pulling it from shoulders. She snaked her arms around him as she felt his arms encircle her, pressing their bodies as tightly together as they could.

Wrapped securely in dry blankets and sitting beneath the warmth of the heater, Rukia focused on evening out her breathing. She grimaced past the aching sensation as blood pumped through her, the feeling eventually beginning to return to her fingers and toes as minutes ticked by. She felt Ichigo heave a deep sigh and lift one hand from her back, hearing him flex and shake his fingers beneath the blanket. She jumped in surprise as he returned his cold hand to the skin of her back, dragging the hard pebbles of her nipples against the planes of his chest and shifting her hips in the seat of his lap.

"Right, sorry," he groaned, "I won't do that again."

Rukia shook her head and set her cheek against his chest, staring away from him towards the heater. As sensation returned to her extremities, her focus on her breathing was starting to waver. Wrapped up in Ichigo's arms, his warm chest pressing against her and surrounded by soft, comfortable blankets, she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. Conversely, wrapped up in Ichigo's arms, hyper-aware her breasts were pressed hard against the muscles of his chest while her thighs were spread around his narrow hips, she was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore a liquid heat beginning to warm at her center.

The tingles of returning blood to his fingers and toes had passed and the instinct for pure survival was abating, leaving Ichigo acutely aware he had a very attractive, very naked girl sitting on his very naked lap. Seeing as how he had already given her an eye full he didn't particularly feel the need to be embarrassed about his situation, may as well let her know too. "Uh, listen Rukia," he cleared his throat and continued, pleased that his teeth weren't chattering anymore, "I'm going to just apologize in advance if our position gets... awkward here."

"I'll let you know if I get uncomfortable," Rukia said, not moving an inch. It only took another twenty more seconds before she could feel exactly what Ichigo was referring to.

"Uncomfortable?" he asked in a semi-strangled voice, growing boyishly embarrassed despite himself.

The combination of exhaustion, comfort and her own arousal affecting her sense of Kuchiki propriety, she adjusted her hips slightly and allowed herself the visceral pleasure of the pressure of him against her velvety skin. "Nope," she answered sleepily. Blinking heavily, she realized something and lightly started to laugh.

"Hey," Ichigo responded, sounding as tired as she felt, "Cut a guy some slack, sit a pretty girl on a guy's lap and you're gonna get that kind of thing, you know, happen."

"It's not about your thing," Rukia said with a tired smirk. "We travel through space, terraform planets, live on space stations, but what is still our go-to method for preventing hypothermia?"

"Cuddle naked under a blanket?" Ichigo yawned.

"Cuddle naked under a blanket," she repeated.

"You don't mess with the classics," he muttered, putting his cheek against the top of her head.

She turned her head away from the heater and laid her cheek against his chest at the base of his neck, closed her eyes and let warm thoughts drift slowly back into her mind as she breathed in the scent of him. "You think I'm pretty, huh?" she mumbled.

"Uh-huh," he mumbled back.

* * *

Drifting slowly up from the depths of contented sleep, he drowsily blinked his eyes in the soft blue gray light filtering into the room. Lying flat on his back amid a tangle of blankets on the hard floor, he lifted his head a bit to get his bearings. Feeling Rukia stir against him, he watched her lift her head from the pillow of his arm, her hair mussed and her eyes blinking away the remnants of sleep. She uncoiled her legs from his as she pushed herself upright, drawing a blanket against her chest and looking around their surroundings as well.

"Hey, how do you feel?" Ichigo asked, looking close at her fingertips. Pink and normal, relief flooded through him.

She raked her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her face before she turned back to him. She had pulled away the blanket covering him as she sat up, leaving him naked to the waist. "Fine, yeah... I'm good," she said, watching the muscles across his chest and abdomen as he pushed himself up, propped on his elbows. "We should, uh, get our stuff together and get out of here before someone sees us," she said, turning away from him, ideally to locate their strewn clothing but in reality to hide her face when she noticed just how convinced Ichigo's body was that it was morning.

Ichigo sat up and wrapped the blanket more firmly around his waist before standing up and moving about the room, Rukia doing the same. The cool air away from the heater having its intended effect, Ichigo felt a bit more comfortable and once he had collected an armload of damp, discarded clothing he padded back over to her.

"This is a problem," Rukia said, dropping the still soggy material on the floor and staring at it, holding the blanket around her torso with one hand.

Ichigo added what he was carrying to the pile and nodded. "We're going to need new clothes."

There was a creaking noise above them, followed by the sounds of footsteps and someone talking, faint and muffled. Ichigo and Rukia looked from the ceiling back at each other, the whites visible around their eyes. Ichigo hurriedly scooped their clothes onto a blanket and gathered up the bundle as Rukia snatched up her weapon harness and made a beeline for a side door. They quietly stepped inside what turned out to be a storage room for the bar, Rukia gently closing the door as someone descended the stairs across the way, talking quietly to himself.

"...review the set list of the band, restock the... hey, why is it so hot in here?" the voice wondered. Ichigo and Rukia held their breaths. "Jidanbo must have forgotten to turn the heaters down again. I bet he left the storm doors open too." The voice gave a long-suffering sigh and continued enumerating his various duties of the day, moving around the bar and preparing to open.

Ichigo reached over and pressed his hand against the arm holding the blanket across her chest, figuring it would be better than the one holding her weapons. He opened a display between them and began writing. "This is the store room, he's going to need to come in here at some point."

"I know, but maybe he'll go back upstairs soon. This place won't open for a few more hours," she wrote back.

"...polishing the tables, polishing the tables..." they heard him sing, his rather nasally voice floating in through the closed door. They silently groaned and gently slid down the wall to sit and wait.

Rukia spotted the bundle of blankets and clothing lying next to Ichigo and noticed something. "You almost got shot last night," she wrote into the display.

"I know, you saved my life when you pushed me down."

"Not then, look." Rukia leaned over him and tugged his jacket up, putting a finger into the hole in the shoulder.

Ichigo blanched a little, realizing what had yanked his sleeve as they crossed the catwalk.

"You okay? You look pale."

"Close one," he wrote back by way of answer.

Rukia nodded and closed her eyes. The shots she had fired hadn't been close ones. She heard a chime in her neural link and looked back at the display. "How much of last night's walk was real, before all the running and shooting?" he had written. She glanced up at his face but it was unreadable.

"You want to talk about this now?" she wrote back. She watched him sigh and look at her.

Ichigo held up the jacket, looking back at the ragged edges of the bullet hole. "Yes, I do."

"Alright. You know, I was going to ask you the same question."

Ichigo didn't respond right away. "I was having a good time, I was hoping you were too," he finally wrote.

"I was, until you told me we were being followed. Then we had to do that little act to throw them off."

"Was it all an act?" he wrote bluntly.

Rukia smiled, her heart starting to pound in her chest as she considered what to write. "Only a little, enough to gain target acquisition," she admitted. "It felt... nice, to be close to someone again, even if you were just acting too." This was his way out, if he wanted it. She tried to refrain from holding her breath as she awaited his response.

"Sorry, I can't act." He watched her glance from the hovering display to his face before he continued. "I did what I did because I wanted to."

"But - you needed to tell me we were being followed, right?"

"Fringe benefit of a good excuse to kiss you." Ichigo's hands were clammy from nerves he couldn't help, but by now he was committed and there wasn't much point in trying to backtrack.

"You don't need one, you know."

"Need what?"

Rukia shifted up to her knees as she set her weapon harness gently on the ground. "An excuse." She smiled as she watched his eyebrows rise from their permanent scowl as he read it, then up higher as she put her hands to his chest and gently pressed her lips to his. She felt his hands slip around her as he captured her bottom lip again, shivers racing down her spine as his fingers trailed up it.

Ichigo felt her body melt onto his as she leaned further, deepening their kiss as she slipped her fingers up his neck and into his hair. He could feel her pulse quicken as the tips of his fingers caressed up her back to the column of her neck while his other moved back down to the small of her back, gliding easily beneath the loose blanket.

She was reminded again of the sensation of him, like a battery against her tongue, only now it was much more literal as she felt their lips part, the warmth of his delicately reaching to touch and slide against her own. Tentatively at first, they let their kiss become more sensual, a fire igniting from the sparks between their lips. Momentarily, Rukia guiltily wondered if she should be doing this, doubts starting to swirl in her mind on if this was all a product of adrenalin and physical attraction. She felt herself gathered up in his arms, his fingers coiling into her thick hair as his other held her securely pressed against him. She firmly kicked her sense Kuchiki propriety to the back of her mind, banishing her doubts and self-consciousness with it. Promptly losing herself in their kiss, she allowed herself to simply enjoy the sensation of being wanted so thoroughly. It felt good not to be a soldier all the time, sometimes it was nice to just be a girl.

Ichigo's neural link chimed but he ignored it until he felt press her forehead against his, breaking their kiss before leaning gently away. She was breathing hard, her face was flushed and her eyes were dark with smoldering arousal. A smile curved its way across her soft lips, glistening and rosy. Ichigo had never seen her look more beautiful. His link chimed again and he flicked his eyes at it.

"I don't hear anyone out there anymore. We should get going."

Ichigo order his muddled thoughts into some semblance of coherency and nodded, frowning resignedly as she pulled away. He watched her rise, pulling the loosened blanket back up around her with one hand and picking up her weapon harness with the other. Ichigo rolled up from the floor and cinched the blanket around his waist tighter before grabbing up the bundle of their clothes and slinging it over his shoulder. He frowned deeper and wrote into the display.

"I'm sorry the evening didn't turn out quite right."

"Oh, I don't know. It wasn't all bad." She coyly bit her lip as she very obviously let her eyes roam over him.

As he tamped down his hormones and stifled a response to her brashness, he reached a hand to the handle of the storeroom door. He was about to pull it open when they heard the unmistakable sound of the exterior bar door slam and the stamp of heavy boots across the floor. Ichigo carefully released the handle as the sound of hurried footsteps descending the far stairs accompanied the scrapes and creaks of chairs being pulled away from tables and the low, grumbling talk of people awakened too early.

"Good morning!" called the nasally man they had heard earlier, attempting to cover the notes of anxiety in his voice through sheer volume.

"Keep it down will ya?" grumbled one voice above the others, "Just go make some coffee or something."

"Yes sir, right away sir."

"What are we doing here anyway boss?" complained another. "It's too fuckin' early for this."

"We're here because Revolver is pissed, that's why. He hired us, he wanted a meeting, so we go," grumbled the first, as if explaining to a child.

"Revolver," the complainer guffawed, "What kind of name is that?"

"One as humorously ironic as it is painfully accurate," said a new voice from the door, his tone polite and conversational. "And I wouldn't describe my state of being as pissed," he continued lightly as he entered the room, the murmuring of the other people dying away. "No, I'd say I'm more... disappointed, than anything else."

Rukia drew her arms around her tighter, as if listening to the sound of his voice could make the room colder.

"You claimed the city would barricade against the storm," they heard him say through the door. "Now, two of your men are dead yet you have nothing to show for it."

"They must have taken shelter somewhere, we have their ship on lockdown and its pilot under surveillance, it's only a matter of time," replied a new voice, his tone serious and firm.

"And the fourth one?" Revolver asked.

"The place she was last seen was hastily abandoned," he said. "Her location is unknown, for now."

"We are paying you very well to ensure that did not happen," said the first, dark undercurrents beginning to lace his polite tone.

"These four are apparently more resourceful than anticipated," the serious voice finished.

"We hired you and your crew because of your proficiency in these types of matters, I did not expect you all to be outwitted by a vigilante, a thief, a naval officer and a civilian. Need I remind you that these are the people who destroyed four of your own ships? Being paid ought to be the icing on the proverbial cake."

"No Revolver, you don't need to remind me," said the first voice angrily.

"Please," he said, a simpering smile stretching through his words, "Call me Revo. All these pseudonyms are so much _fun_." It was difficult to tell if he was being serious or not.

"Well, even if they managed to survive the night their resources must be wearing thin. I assure you we'll complete the contract before the deadline," promised the first.

"It's the bottom line of the contract that's important," Revolver said as he headed towards the door. "I'm _sure_ your men can handle it: Shoot to kill. Ta-ta now." The door swung shut with a soft, anti-climactic click.

Ichigo and Rukia were staring at each other as they listened at the door, shock and disbelief evident on their features. Rukia had drawn one of her weapons from the holster, gripping it securely even though her eyes had widened. She had heard other people express a callous disregard for life, but not like this, not with such frivolous sarcasm. She leaned into him slightly, refreshed their connection, and wrote two words into their shared display.

"We're fucked."

"Maybe we can still pull this off, they'll leave soon, right?"

"So? That guy Revolver has put a hit out on all four of us. They're already watching Ishida and Yoruichi is missing."

"You still think this is about the artifact?"

"Has to be. If we can get off the surface and make it to anyone in the G-13, I think we'll be fine. Urahara and Yoruichi can play cloak and dagger with the noble's artifact thief all they want."

"Funny, coming from a covert operative."

She glared at him. "Focus."

"I am. Don't you think we look like accomplices?"

Rukia actually thought they looked more like a couple of horny teenagers. She cleared her head and felt herself slipping back into her comfortable role as a soldier. "That's why we need to get to the G-13, to report on the situation and clear everything with my commanding officer. Then we just repair the _Sode no Shirayuki,_ head back to Karakura Station and..." And what? What was this? "And figure this out."

"You four, go take over watching the ship and pilot. You stay here, we need a way to find those other three," said the first voice, the one apparently in charge. Grumbling and chair scraping ensued as a number of people left. "Where's that coffee?" he grumbled once the room had quieted.

The storeroom door swung open and a young man stepped inside, looking back over his shoulder. "I'll have it out in a minute," he called as he turned, saw them, and nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise. Colliding heavily with a shelf of supplies, he screamed as he landed in a heap against the wall, cleaning supplies raining down on top of him.

"Hey, you okay in there?" a voice called out from the bar.

Rukia was over to him in a moment, the barrel of her weapon pressing hard into the young man's side. She was trying to come up a plan and hoped her face and gun were communicating the seriousness of his predicament. Ichigo prudently nudged the door closed again.

"Oww, that hurt. Hey wait a minute, Rukia? Is that you?" the man said, his eyes beginning to shine in wonder.

"What did you say? Hey, answer me!" said a voice outside.

"Shhhh," Rukia said in a panic, unable to think of anything better.

"Rukia! You're back! It's been so long, it's good to see you!" he exclaimed from the floor.

"Rukia? Hanatoro, what the hell are you talking about?" said the voice on the other side of the storeroom door.

"Hey, what happened to your clothes? And who's that guy? And why do you have a gun?" Hanatoro wondered aloud.

The door to the storeroom roughly slammed opened, the three figures standing on the other side looked back and forth between a sitting Hanatoro, a crouching Rukia and a scowling Ichigo. Two of the three of them had a dawning revelation and immediately drew their weapons.

The third one pulled his finger from his nose as stared over the first two. "Hey, isn't that the guy we're looking for? And that must be the chick," said the complainer, a surprisingly tall, thick set man with greasy black slicked hair and a leer stretching across his flabby face.

"You were right, we're fucked," Ichigo said, slowly raising his hands.

Rukia stared up at the doorway, her face slack from surprise, her attention drawn solely to one man. His face flicked through a hundred emotions in the span of a moment. She watched him settle his weapon up on his shoulder as he pulled a cocky smirk across his lips, crouching down to her level and securing a heavy set of goggles higher on his head. "Renji," she breathed.

"Your carrot-topped friend is right in more ways than one," he said coldly as he shot his eyes up to hers, fury boiling at the edges, "Rukia."

Rukia sighed and released the grip on her gun, holding it up only by the trigger guard. Renji snatched it away from her and she slumped, defeated, holding up her hands in surrender.


	13. A Shot from the Bar

"Get your asses out here," Renji ordered, turning away from the storeroom and stalking back into the bar.

Ichigo was dragged out roughly by the complainer while Rukia was simply waved at gunpoint by the other, the two of them none-to-gently escorted out into the main room. Pushed to their knees and with their hands behind their heads, the blankets they had wrapped around themselves were beginning to loosen.

Renji stood silently, facing away from them, tapping one of her weapons against his leg as he breathed deeply. When he turned to face them his lips were drawn into a hard line, the look on his face revealing nothing. The silence stretched.

"Hah, been a while since she was on her knees in front of you, huh boss?" said the tall, fat one.

"You shut up," Renji and Ichigo said in unison.

"You aren't in any position to give orders," Renji said acidly.

Ichigo simply stared back at him, his mind racing down several avenues of action at once.

Rukia, catching the look on his face, whispered, "Don't do anything stupid."

"No promises," Ichigo replied, his eyes never leaving Renji's face.

Renji didn't bother to retort, just pulled a cocky smirk onto his face as he sat down at a table, taking Rukia's weapon harness as the other young man handed it to him.

Ichigo watched him return to stand beside Renji, weapon calmly held pointed his way. He had a stoic, austere look for someone as young as he appeared and as roguish as he dressed. Balancing out a trio of thin scars descending one side of his face were a pair of tattoos, a light blue stripe across his nose, stretching beneath one eye and above the number 69 written in an ornate script across his cheekbone. They were different from the jagged, symmetrical black spikes and angles across Renji's forehead and neck, but their combined effect was no less aggressive.

Ichigo turned his attention back to Renji, watching him silently examine her two weapons as he checked the breach, chamber, and clip with far too much familiarity than Ichigo felt comfortable with. His inspection complete, the smirk gradually falling away, he laid them on the table with a heavy sigh and then turned back to them.

"You kept them, huh? Sokat 51U's are hardly standard issue," he said. Ichigo heard a hint of vulnerability in his voice.

Rukia lifted her eyes from the floor, distant and glacial. "You going to shoot us, Renji? I didn't know you were in the murder for hire business now."

His eyes flashed. "I'm in the _delivery_ business, same as always. You remember how it was." There was a brief moment of regret, despair on his face before he turned away. "I've got a crew to look out for. You get hired for a job, you _deliver_. Even if sometimes what you deliver are bullets."

"You're still a pirate and a thug," she sneered.

"Old habits are hard to break, you should know that better than anyone," he said, snapping back to look at her, the despair in his voice turning to raw hurt. "Still fucking your pilots I see."

Rukia was on her feet in an instant, a sharp smack ringing out through the bar. "How _dare_ you..." she whispered as Renji slowly turned his face back to her, the side of his cheek coloring slightly. She was pushed roughly back to her knees beside Ichigo, both of them staring daggers at Renji.

Ichigo glanced back at her. She was visibly upset but wrapping it up and sharpening it to a razor's edge.

Renji laughed humorlessly, unable to help but feel like he had gone too far. "What am I supposed to do with you Rukia? You shot two of my men last night." He held up one of her weapons as damning evidence. "The new crew, they don't know you like the old ones do, and the only old ones still around are in this room."

"You shouldn't have taken a contract to kill me then," Rukia said evenly.

"We weren't told it was you," Renji said, his voice hard but desperation in his eyes. "You blew up four of my ships, we traced your ship's engine wash to that derelict factory and then down to this moon. The contract came in for everyone on your ship and we took it since we would've done it anyway."

"We didn't destroy those ships!" Rukia shouted at him. "We _avenged_ them! They were torn up by Hollows-"

"No. No more bullshit stories about alien ships and some navy cover up. I don't want to listen to it again," Renji said, anticipating her.

"What happened to you Renji?" Rukia asked, a sad softness in her voice. "You used to be better than this."

"Sorry, but life doesn't just hand you everything you want on a silver platter." His face darkened considerably. "Oh right, sometimes it does. Isn't that right, Miss Kuchiki?"

"I never wanted... I didn't ask for that to happen," she said, her teeth clenched.

"What's he talking about?" Ichigo asked out the corner of his mouth. There was obviously some kind of history here and Ichigo felt like he was missing most of it.

Renji stared at Ichigo blankly, then burst out with a sharp laugh. "Don't tell me you don't know... Where'd you get this bumpkin Rukia?" Refusing to answer, she glanced at Ichigo, seeing his brows furrow in frustrated annoyance. Renji leaned over towards Ichigo, a cruel smile on his face. "Our little Rukia here is _nobility_."

Ichigo's face shifted fractionally from confusion to disbelief, his eyes flicked to her face. The downcast set to her eyes was all the confirmation he needed.

"Yep, sister to the head of the Kuchiki line," Renji continued.

"By adoption only!" she fired at him.

"And heir-apparent to the entire Kuchiki estate," Renji shot back.

"He could marry again, you don't know that for su-"

"He won't marry anyone else, you know that as well as anyone in the whole system," Renji said. "And I bet he'll pay a pretty penny to get his sister back."

It was Rukia's turn to let out a sharp laugh in Renji's face. "No he won't, you saved him the trouble of finding some way to get rid of me. Now he can let his grief consume him all he wants and the stupid family can die out like he's wanted since Hisana died. He hasn't even looked at me since that day."

"Alright, you heard her. She's not worth anything to anyone, so we can't ransom her. We gonna do them here or what? Hurry it up, I ain't got all day for this," said the fat one, boredom evident in his voice.

"Oh please, you can't shoot Miss Rukia, you _can't_ ," Hanatoro pleaded.

"We don't shoot anyone until I say, so keep your mouth shut, all of you," Renji ordered, his tolerance wearing thin.

"Your 'say so' doesn't put any money in my account. We're getting paid to ice these two, and them other two, so we should just get it over with. Don't matter to me if you used to bang her, that's your fucking problem. You got a 'crew to watch out for' or some shit, so let's do this."

There was a heavy knock on the rear service door, diffusing the Renji's growing frustration. "Take Hanatoro and get rid of whoever's at the goddamn door," he said pointing to the fat troublemaker. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and ignored the fat man's profanity-laced muttering as he stomped over to the door leading to the kitchens, slight, timid Hanatoro in tow.

"This isn't going to end well," said the quiet, reserved young man next to Renji.

"Yeah, I know man. I'm not seeing a good way out of this. Either we fulfill the contract," Renji chewed down his discomfort at so simply stating it, "Or we blow the deal and Revolver puts the contract on us instead. Something tells me he could easily up the reward too, and there's plenty of people out here who'd jump at the chance to get paid to satisfy a grudge." They could hear Hanatoro talking through the rear doors, the words 'band' and 'set list' discernible. Renji sighed, rolling his eyes and turned to Rukia. "I should never have bought this bar."

"You own The Hanging Dog now?" Rukia asked, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"Lot of good memories, we practically grew up in here," Renji admitted. "Thought it would be nice to have some place planetside for once." A shadow loomed over Renji as he leaned back in his chair, confused at Rukia and Ichigo's suddenly stricken faces. "Dude, don't stand in the light right behind me, it bugs the shit out of-"

A sudden crash and explosion of splintered wood shattered the stillness of the bar, the young man holding the weapon sent flying sideways to crash heavily into the far wall, the remains of an acoustic guitar draping his unconscious form.

"What the fuck?" Renji blurted, drawing his weapon and spinning around only to have it snatched away impossibly fast by a giant of a man, curly brown hair obscuring his face save for one murderous eye. With a sharp metallic sound, two enormous heatsinks slid up from the shoulder of his artificial arm. He lifted Renji's weapon and crushed it like a child's toy, powerful servos spinning hard, the air shimmering around the heatsinks.

"Hey Ichigo," he greeted evenly, dropping the ruined weapon and wrapping his hand into an enormous fist, balling up his fingers and pulling his arm back, his eye never leaving Renji's face.

"Hey... Chad," Ichigo stuttered, his face a study in shocked awe.

"Is that the new girl you've been working with?" Chad asked simply. "Hey new girl," he continued in his smooth, unflappable voice as Ichigo nodded.

"Uh, hi. Chad, is it?" Rukia said, pulling her hands from her head and rising from her knees. Ichigo saw her and quickly did the same.

The kitchen doors parted as Hanatoro stumbled out. "Oh no, this is bad," he said, "What do I... AHH!" The kitchen door was roughly kicked open and knocked Hanatoro down, sliding him into the room on his chest.

"Son of a bitch," the fat man said, angrily stomping into the room, his hands shaking in rage and a giant bruise beginning to purple his face. "Fuck you Renji, we should've just killed them from the beginning instead of listening to you whine about your ex-girlfriend. Now I'm just gonna have to care of this goddamn contract myself." He swung his arm up and leveled an enormous weapon at Rukia.

The air of the bar was torn by heavy, metallic thunder as a flash of blue light threw everyone into stark relief, burning the image into their eyes. There was a second where no one moved a muscle, followed by the slow, crumbling crash of what was left of the fat man. Hanatoro, laying on the ground next to the upended table Renji had been sitting at, stared wide-eyed as the man landed on the floor. A rattling sound broke the stillness as his hands began to shake, his fingers tightly clutching one of Rukia's weapons. He began to whimper and mumble before Rukia gently slid the gun from his hands, helping him to stand.

"Shhhh, don't look," Rukia said softly soothed, turning Hanatoro away as the young man fought back the urge to sob and retch.

"Well, I suppose Shuhei was right," Renji said, keeping his hands up and doing his best to be nonthreatening. His eyes flicked over to the man laying against the wall as Ichigo walked towards him. "Hey, what are you doing?"

Ichigo ignored him, pressing his fingers against the man's throat and tried a medical link, somewhat surprised to find it work. "Steady heartbeat, shallow but even breathing, minor lacerations. He'll have a killer headache when he wakes up, but that's it."

Renji stared at Ichigo as he stood and walked back towards them before looking back at the unconscious form of Shuhei. Truthfully, he was relieved to hear he would be alright. The same did not hold for the human wreckage laying near the kitchen doors Renji realized. "Good riddance," he spat quietly at the dead man, "I used to be better than this."

"We should get out of here, naval patrol forces will investigate the gunshot," Chad said, his arm still cocked at Renji.

"Chad, what are you doing here?" Ichigo asked.

"Chad, do you have a ship?" Rukia asked immediately after, pouring Hanatoro a shot of amber liquid from the bar.

"Chad, do you have any _clothes?_ " Ichigo asked a second later, cinching the blanket around his waist again.

"We came to play at this bar, I've got clothes in the crawler we rented out back, I do not have a ship."

"I've got a ship," Renji said. "But you'll have to take us with you."

"No way," Ichigo said. "You were ready to kill us a minute ago."

"If that's true I would've killed you fifty nine seconds ago. However, since you're still alive you can be reasonably certain I was trying to find some way _out_ of killing you," Renji turned towards Rukia at the bar, "Well, some way out of killing Rukia at least."

"Asshole," Ichigo muttered.

"Renji, do not provoke Ichigo. Ichigo, don't make decisions for me. Renji, we all won't fit in the _Hell Butterfly._ "

"I lost that one a while ago," Renji said somberly. "But the new one should be plenty big enough."

"Fine," Rukia said, picking up her weapon harness and guns, handing one to Ichigo and taking one herself. Together, the six of them left out the back, climbing quickly down to Chad's large, gunmetal colored transport vehicle. Once inside, the ones still conscious had to blink a few times to adjust their eyes. As drab as it was on the outside, the interior had been hastily redecorated in riotous color and texture. Chad set Shuhei down on one of the plush couches and turned to face the others, his head brushing the ceiling of the transport.

"I'll get you some clothes," he said simply, and disappeared past them into the further areas of the large vehicle.

"You, sit," Rukia commanded, poking Renji's shoulder and forcing him into a seat next to Shuhei. They sat in awkward silence together while Chad quietly slipped around the rear of the transport, rousing different members of the band and asking whispered questions while Ichigo and Rukia, wrapped in blankets, held their guns over Renji and Shuhei, Hanatoro sitting quietly in a corner.

"What happened to this thing?" Renji said, looking around slightly aghast.

"Our new lead singer," Chad said by way of explanation as he returned to the front area of the vehicle carrying a small stack of folded material. He handed some of the stack to Ichigo and the other, smaller part to Rukia. He stood silently, his dusky cheeks coloring as Rukia looked through what he had brought her.

"I'll, uh... just go change then," Rukia said, putting on a pleasant face. The clothing left behind with rock bands usually only fit into one or two categories, and neither of them were 'functional' or 'inconspicuous'. "Thank you Chad," she added earnestly. Heading to the transport's small bathroom she noted a few articles that would fit her and that at least everything was decently clean.

"Why do you have a new lead singer?" Ichigo asked Chad out of the corner of his mouth.

"The other guys wanted an edgier look," Chad replied. He looked down at his arm, his fingers moving in a distinctly mechanical way. "Among other reasons."

Ichigo took the opportunity to dress, handing the weapon to Chad before quickly pulling on the slightly too big clothing. Sighing at the light blue flower printed shirt, he covered it with a long coat and took the weapon back just as Shuhei started to stir.

"Ugh," he said, rolling up to a sitting position and holding his head and shoulder. "Did someone hit me with a _guitar_?"

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" he asked, seeing the weapon in Ichigo's hand and quickly taking a cue from Renji beside him not to make any threatening moves. He too looked around at the garish interior with surprise.

"So you would not shoot Ichigo," Chad replied.

"Yeah, but a guitar? What a waste."

"Indeed, I liked that guitar."

Ichigo turned his attention to Renji. "Where are Ishida and Yoruichi?" As far as the other members of Renji's crew knew, the contract still needed to be fulfilled which meant they were in danger.

Aggravated, Renji asked, "Weren't you listening? We don't know where the purple-haired girl went. The stuffy guy in glasses is probably still in his ship. He had some big delivery from that creepy girl of Kurotsuchi's, then he buttoned up the ship and rode out the storm inside."

"Chad, can you take us to the spaceport?" Ichigo asked.

"Sure," he intoned, heading up to the front.

"No one's going to play the bar for a while anyway," Renji grumbled, glaring at Hanatoro, curled up in another chair and hugging himself.

"Why, what happened to-" Shuhei started to ask.

"I'll tell you later," Renji muttered as the crawler lurched and rumbled along the deep muddy road.

Rukia emerged from the rear of the transport, pushing various hangings aside and straightening what she was wearing. She quickly slung her weapon harness over her shoulders, clipping the fasteners at her waist and around her thigh. _Well, I guess I'll freeze a little slower than when I was just wearing a blanket_ , she mused. She became aware of several looks her way as she slid her weapon in the holster along her leg and drew a warm coat up her arms. She shot a scowl Ichigo would be proud of at Renji as she zipped up the coat to her neck.

"Hey, Ishida has a ship, and all the stuff is already on it, why can't we just use his?" Ichigo asked as Rukia took her other weapon and slid it away behind her back.

"Because," Rukia said as she kept glaring at Renji, "It's under lockdown until a patrol does an inspection and clears it for liftoff. The landing pads won't release mooring control until the navy gives it the access code."

"You're navy, can't you just..." Ichigo made a finger tapping motion in the air. She stared back at him blankly. "Fine, I guess not."

The crawler's giant wheels chewed through the mud on their way towards the spaceport, rolling over dips and furrows while the cab itself barely even rocked. Ichigo and Rukia huddled together at a table going over their options, the pair of pirates and a bewildered rock band trickling up from the rear serving as an uncomfortable audience.

"So you guys actually have a contract to kill those two? But then Chad got the drop on you and now it's all backwards?" asked one man, shaggy blonde hair waving as he spoke. "That's wild man, we should do a song about this."

Renji growled under his breath and turned to Rukia. "I could handle botching this job, it's pretty much sunk already, and I'm fine with whatever fallout Revolver dreams up, just don't let it get put into a song."

"No promises," Rukia replied, trading a smile with Ichigo.

"What are we going to do with them anyway?" Ichigo asked, trying to keep his face neutral.

"If they're good little boys," Rukia said, glancing at Renji and Shuhei, "We'll let them go after the contract deadline expires."

"They still think we blew up those four ships," Ichigo said.

"Showing them the flight data recording from the interceptor should clear that up," Rukia said confidently. Ichigo was skeptical but kept quiet. "Regardless, the short term plan is the same, get Uryu, find Yoruichi, get off this moon."

Ichigo nodded, drumming his fingers on the surface of the table. "So, you and him?"

"It was a long time ago."

He blew his breath out his nose, struggling to be content to simply leave it at that. "And you're a noble?"

"No," she said after a slight pause. "That's my brother's world and I keep myself far away from it now." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as Ichigo.

"We'll talk, you know, when we have time," Ichigo said. Rukia nodded, each of them silently agreeing to set aside what had happened that morning and focus on the situation at hand.

"I, uh..." Hanatoro mumbled, busying himself around the cab of the transport, "I made that coffee you wanted Mister Abarai. Does anyone else want any?"

"Yes," spoke up Ichigo and Rukia. The two of them were getting ravenously hungry as well.

"How do you-" Hanatoro started, glancing at Rukia.

"Cream and cinnamon," Renji said at once. He shot a superior look at Ichigo, who only scowled deeper.

"Rukia can handle ordering her own coffee, Renji," Ichigo said. The smug look on Renji's face dissolved instantly.

"Doesn't much matter," Rukia sighed, looking out the front while glancing longingly at the carafe of coffee, "We're at the spaceport."

The crawler rumbled to a stop at one of the platforms around ground level, its wheels sinking into the mud as Chad turned off the motors. He was pulling a heavy coat of his own onto his shoulders, carefully threading his artificial arm through the sleeve. "I'm going with them to find their other friend," he told his bandmates as they lounged around on the seats, blithely unaware of most of what was going on.

"You sure Chad?" Ichigo asked. Chad gave Ichigo a thumb's up, the curly brown hair hiding his eyes but not the strong set of his jaw or firm line of his mouth. "Okay," Ichigo said, inwardly relieved to have him along. Chad had been a good friend when Ichigo needed one, it was good to know he still had his back.

Stepping out of the large transport, the members of the band staring after them, the six of them made their way up the ramps to the central mezzanine area. Pulling their coats around them tighter to ward off the cold, damp air, they attempted to look like any other group of stellar travelers heading back to their ship, doing their best to avoid the attention of the few other travelers and the navy patrols milling through the spaceport.

Renji and Shuhei led the group over to a secluded section of the open terraced building and turned to face their targets-turned-captors. "Alright, what's your plan?" Renji asked.

Ichigo opened his mouth to respond, but had no reply ready. He didn't have a plan. Uryu was up on the landing pad level, probably sitting in his ship right now eating breakfast, unaware he was being watched. Probably through several long range weapon scopes even. Damn, breakfast sounded good.

"You're going to go up there and tell your crew to shove off, the job's fallen through," Rukia said.

"Yeah? What makes you think I won't double cross you?" Renji replied.

Rukia's hand flash out and yanked Renji's coat to the side, revealing a weapon holster concealed within. "If you were going to do that you would've done it already."

Renji twitched his coat back into place angrily. "A concealed weapon doesn't make much of an argument against a double cross, I am a pirate you know, they come with the job."

"Which? Concealed weapons or double crosses?" Rukia said, narrowing her eyes.

"Both," Renji said, glowering back at her.

"Renji," Shuhei said, diffusing the tension. "The job _has_ fallen through. Revolver is going to find out what happened at the bar, if he hasn't already. He knew we lost two last night, he probably had eyes on us the whole time." Each of them subconsciously began looking around, furtively checking for anyone watching them. "He'd never honor the contract now even if we pulled it off. Not that we're going to try," he said to Rukia.

"I knew there was something wrong with this job from the beginning," Renji said as he turned away. He made his way up to the landing pad level alone, moving out of sight at the lip of the ramp.

The five of them remained standing around, an awkward silence falling among them until Chad of all people broke the silence. "I am glad you were not seriously injured in the bar," he said, towering over the rest of them.

"Yeah," Shuhei said, reflexively working his injured shoulder. "What kind of guitar was it?" he asked, his face pained when Chad told him. He leaned against the railing and look out to the skyline, the clouds hanging low in the sky. "I wonder how the others will take the news."

"You think they may be angry?" Ichigo asked.

"We have something of a... morale problem," Shuhei admitted. "Especially after losing those four ships. There were decent people on those ships."

The others were quiet, even Uryu managed to sublimate his urge to sniff disdainfully. After a few minutes, Rukia asked, "Can you tell us about who it was that put a contract on us?"

"We dealt with a guy named Revolver in person," Shuhei said, still looking at the clouds, "But he used 'we' all the time so he may have just been a front man. We were working a job around Junrinan Four when the wide band picked up a message for us. We headed out and found what we did, then came back and wanted the details. Details came in and it was win-win for us, so we took the contract. He never told us why it was your crew, just who it was. The whole thing came and went pretty fast."

"Speaking of pretty fast, here comes Renji," Ichigo muttered, indicating the pirate leader quick-stepping his way back down the ramp and over to them.

"There's a problem," Renji said to Shuhei as he neared.

"They didn't like the news?" Shuhei replied.

Renji briskly shook his head, a tense look in his eyes. "There's no one at the shuttle to tell."

"What do you mean?" Shuhei asked, brows falling in confusion.

"I mean the shuttle's empty and was left wide open."

"What about the _Longbow?_ Is Ishida still in there?" Ichigo asked.

"I'm kinda concerned about my own crew at the moment, go look for yourself," Renji replied testily. They all turned to head back up the ramp to the top level, half heading towards Renji's shuttle while the other half moved over towards the _Longbow_. The boarding ramp was down as Ichigo, Rukia and Chad approached. Cautiously arrayed around the bottom of the ramp, the three of them peered up into the darkness at the top.

"Uryu? Hey, Ishida!" Ichigo called out, cupping his hands to his mouth and yelling up into the belly of the ship. No response came back. Looking around, Rukia drew one of her weapons and quietly set foot on the boarding ramp. Taking a few measured steps she poked her head up into the relative darkness, peering around for any sign of Uryu or failing that, a struggle.

"See anything?" Ichigo asked, focused on her.

"Nothing, Uryu's not here," she replied. The landing above the boarding ramp was empty, as was the bridge in one direction and the crew cabin in the other.

"Of course not, I'm right here," Uryu said from beside Ichigo.

"Gah," Ichigo said, whipping around to face the stern young man.

"I must admit I became concerned when you two did not return to the ship before the storm hit," Uryu said, pushing his glasses up his nose, "No doubt you managed to find other... accommodations."

"Yeah about last night," Rukia said as she hurriedly waved them into the relative safety of the landing at the top of the boarding ramp. Together with Ichigo she related the more salient points of their flight from the group of assassins, their sanctuary at the bar and that a man code named as Revolver had put a price on their heads. They mutually left out the extended amount of nudity.

"The timing of it seems rather convenient, wouldn't you agree?" Uryu said, rubbing his chin. "If indeed it is the same group or person orchestrating the thefts of the artifacts and the contract on our lives, their capacity to gather information and put plans into action across the system is staggering."

"Let's admire the bad guys later and focus on finding Yoruichi and the artifact," Ichigo said.

"Yo," a voice called from the bottom of the boarding plank, "Permission to come aboard?"

"Who is..." Uryu began, looking back down the boarding ramp at two of the most unlikeliest figures to ever request permission to board _his_ ship. Uryu shut his gaping mouth and quirked it into a critical frown. "Renji Abarai and Shuhei Hisagi."

If knowing them by name put them off balance at all, neither showed it. Indeed Renji smirked up at Uryu. "It's been a while Bowman, how've you been?" he walked up the boarding ramp, Shuhei at his side.

"You know each other?" Ichigo asked.

"Amateur vigilantes are an occupational hazard," Renji replied.

"Yes, it's listed very clearly on the amateur pirate job description," Uryu fired back.

"So he's like this all the time?" Ichigo whispered to Rukia.

"He is now," Shuhei muttered. He tried his best not to make it into an accusation, but from the fall of Rukia's eyes he could tell she took it as such.

"What's the status of the shuttle containing your crew?" Rukia asked Shuhei, ignoring Renji and Uryu's verbal sparring and forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

"Suspiciously vacant," Shuhei said, looking pensive. "No sign of a struggle or blood, and let me assure you, with this crew there would be plenty of both in the event of foul play."

"What are you thinking?" Rukia asked.

"I'm thinking that whoever sent us the contract knew you would be among the targets, and that it would be difficult for Renji to complete it," he replied, still rubbing his chin. "What I don't understand is why."

"There are too many unknown variables," Rukia continued, leaning against a bulkhead and drawing her thin eyebrows down as well.

Ichigo put his hands in his pockets and leaned against another bulkhead, reviewing the situation as he understood it. Yoruichi had taken the Shihoin artifact, but she was the sorta-head of the house, so it wasn't a big deal, or so she said. Someone else had taken the other artifacts from the other houses, but the nobles weren't talking about it because it made them look pretty stupid. At some point after they had picked up Yoruichi and crashed into the pirate trap, someone had gone through the trouble of telling those pirates it was them who killed their comrades. If the pirates succeeded in killing them, whoever put up the contract would be free to pick up the artifact. But it looked like they were set up for failure from the beginning, as Renji would be incapable of killing Rukia, so where was the gain? What did the pirates have that was of greater value than the artifact?

Ichigo ran his fingers through his messy orange hair as he thought about it, coming back to one detail that kept nagging at him. The timing between the fight with the Hollows near the trap and the contract put out on them. What had Ishida said? They had deployed some type of transmitter and were calling in reinforcements? That didn't make any sense, no other Hollows had appeared even though the artifact had been unshielded all the way down to the moon's surface. So they must have been communicating with...

"Revolver," Ichigo said, his brows rising in realization. He turned to Rukia, fully aware of what she would say in response but told her anyway. "Revolver is working with the Hollows." To his surprise, she did not immediately rebuke. Sure, she parted her lips and prepared to respond but stopped before uttering anything, then shut her mouth and tilted her head in consideration. "Sounds crazy, I know," he said, somewhat distracted by the movements of her lips.

"No one's ever been able to communicate with them before though," she said carefully. "Why would they work with a human?"

Ichigo didn't really have a good reason. The Hollows just wanted the artifact, and to skulk around eating wayward ships. Whoever took the artifacts would likely be defending them from Hollows, not working with them. And what good would it do the Hollows to set up a bunch of pirates on a rigged murder-for-hire contract? "Alright, it might not make any sense, but it's just too damn weird for it all to be a coincidence. Someone's got a plan, and it involves us for some reason."

A loud, blaring alarm suddenly sounded across the spaceport, notices appearing in everyone's neural links that had them.

"What's that noise?" Hanatoro shouted, his hands covering his ears.

"Uncontrolled deorbit alarm," Chad said, bending to look out a viewport. "A ship is about to crash," he said, pointing a finger. They dashed back down the _Longbow's_ boarding ramp and peered up at the early morning sky, the iron gray storm clouds stretching from horizon to horizon served as a startling backdrop to a long line of oily black smoke billowing from a fiery object streaking across the sky. Horrified but unable to look away, they watched it's long, silent fall across the sky. Naval patrol forces had already been scrambled and a number of strikercraft and larger rescue vessels shot by overhead, headed out in the direction of the doomed ship's plummeting descent.

"Are we in danger?" Hanatoro asked, looking around the highly exposed area of the landing pad level.

"The navy would've blown it out of the sky if it was going to crash into the city," Renji said, pointing vaguely to an area of the wilds beyond the settlement. "It's going to fall somewhere over there."

"It's breaking up," Rukia whispered, watching the plume of streaking fire begin to alter, new surfaces blazing into brilliant scarlet light in the blue-gray light of dawn.

"I hope everyone got out in time," Chad said as they watched its final seconds from their high vantage. The ship, a long black smoke trail in its wake, changed neither speed nor direction as it slammed gracelessly into the surface. There was no blinding explosion, no billowing cloud of ash, no deafening shockwave, just a new, enormous crater of brown-gray mud baked dry by the heat of the impact and a few seconds later the low thudding sound of the crash rolled over them, tiny vibrations buzzing briefly through their feet.

The navy strikercraft were soon circling the area while rescue vehicles moved in to land, others tracing the ship's path back up into orbit, no doubt looking for jettisoned escape vehicles. Rukia was just about to turn and head back up the ramp when a thin yellow beam of light flickered out through the remnants of black smoke, shearing through one of the strikercraft and sending both halves of it tumbling down to the muddy surface.

"No..." Rukia whispered below the gasps and sounds of shock from everyone around her. Eyes wide, unable to look away, she heard the sound of the air rent by the energy discharge rolled over them a few seconds later, followed by the cracking explosion of the navy ship and dull thud of impact as it hit the ground. The delay between what she saw and what she heard made the scene surreal, like from a nightmare. Nightmare made real, she watched the crashed form of the ship within the clearing black smoke move and writhe, its shape changing. The sweep of its central cowling split along seams and ridges, other planes pivoting or sliding beneath and around elongating shapes. The smooth, overlapping lines across its fuselage sunk in or bulged outward grotesquely as it heaved itself upwards, the sharp ridges of its metallic paneling sliding away to reveal bright red fibrous muscle tissue.

"Rukia, is that..." Ichigo began. They all watched it tip the pointed metal shield of its head back, cords of red muscle pulling open freakish, alien jaws lined with gleaming jagged teeth as ropes of claw-tipped tentacles burst from its mouth, waving and coiling in the air. An unnatural howl, filled with rage and terrible hunger rumbled over them a few seconds later. "I've heard that noise before," Ichigo muttered.

"It's a Hollow," Rukia said as it raised itself to its full height and lumbered from the crater it had made. The tentacles slathering over its jaws shot out and latched onto one of the halves of the navy strikercraft it had attacked, pulling it back through the mud and up to its gaping maw.

"Did you know they could do that?" Ichigo asked quietly, watching it tear into the navy ship.

"Yes," Rukia replied, "But I have never seen it happen in person. We need to destroy it."

"But the navy already has it surrounded," Uryu said.

"Navy strikers simply do not have the firepower to injure a Hollow of that caliber, let along kill it," Rukia said.

Ichigo pulled his eyes away from the gruesome spectacle of the Hollow and down to Rukia. If Orihime had been here watching the chilling scene, she would have been clinging to his arm, abject fear in her eyes and a tremble in her lips. Instead, he watched Rukia remove both her weapons from their holsters, check the magazine of each and with two sliding clicks, chamber rounds into each one. It struck him that she was nothing like the fairy tale princess she took her call sign from, and while her milky skin was as white as new snow, it was much more likely that the look she had on her face at this moment had earned her that call sign. She slid her guns away, her face never wavering from the cold, uncompromising determination that had frozen her features into a grim mask, even as she turned and headed back up the boarding ramp.

"And since the navy can't kill it, I will," she swore.

* * *

Leaning casually against his small, unassuming ship, the man let out a small chuckle. The only one not watching the spectacle of the Hollow, he paid careful attention to the six individuals across the way, all moving up into the _Longbow_. In the corner of his vision blinked a comm request and he sighed before answering it.

"Report, Revolver."

"Everything is moving exactly as you predicted it would," he replied.

"You have secured the subject." It was more of a statement than a question.

"The one you have identified, all the others have been disposed of except two."

"And they have joined the girl? What are their actions?"

Revolver looked back at the _Longbow_ as the boarding ramp shuddered and drew up, sealing closed. "The plan is progressing, though I believe they are growing suspicious of the increase to the timetable."

"That cannot be helped. Do not underestimate her or the civilian. I do not need to tell you how precarious the situation is. Load up the cargo and move to the rendezvous point," he ordered.

"Yes sir," he said, a smile in his voice. He deactivated the comm link and walked around to the rear of his ship, the cargo bay door still standing wide open. Sitting outside was a single cargo container shaped roughly like an old style coffin. Revolver crouched down beside it and swept his hand across a clear viewport into the container, wiping away some of the collected slush and rainwater. "So much trouble," he said to himself, peering down at the form within. Frozen in stasis, hard, angry eyes stared unblinkingly back at him from beneath wild, electric blue hair. He lifted his eyes up to the other containers stacked inside his ship's cargo hold. "Let's hope the Captain's plan works out, hmmm?"


	14. Roar

"The uncontrolled deorbit alarm should have unlocked all landing pad mooring controls, so let's dust off before they re-engage," Shuhei said as they all crammed aboard.

Uryu stood at the entrance to the bridge, looking back at the six others on his ship. Moving from Ichigo and Rukia, over the pair of pirates, and onto the tall, muscled, dark-skinned young man and the small, pale, hunched figure next to him. Another unearthly howl filtered through the ship and all of them involuntarily shuddered. Deciding that introductions would have to wait, Uryu motioned to Rukia before heading onto the bridge.

"Do your energy weapons work in an atmosphere?" Rukia asked, already guessing the answer.

"Not with the same potency, no," Uryu replied, sitting at his central station. "Additionally, with the increased mass of your engine components and this many crew, we are going to be severely outmatched if we engage that Hollow."

"We don't have time to try to bring the _Sode no Shirayuki_ down by remote, and the only other G-13 ship is at least a half-hour away. There aren't any navy cruisers or corvettes in this part of the system, so we don't have a lot of options," Rukia said.

"Rukia," Ichigo said stepping onto the bridge and up next to her, "Why is it so important that this Hollow is destroyed so fast?"

Rukia turned her gaze up to Ichigo's concerned face. "I told you that this has happened before, but that I've never seen it myself. I _have_ seen the file on it though. You are aware of the Kyoguko Five incident?"

"Sure, everybody knows about it. Some kind of disaster happened, they call what's left the 'Valley of Screams' now," Ichigo said, not comprehending.

"That was a single planetside Hollow, smaller than this one, and it only took fifteen minutes," Rukia said, watching as Ichigo paled slightly. "If we don't do something, there won't be anything left of this place. It'll tear apart the city looking for the artifact." Another terrible howling roar split the air, punctuating Rukia's sense of urgency.

The ground beneath their feet lurched suddenly as Uryu cycled up his engines and brought the I-Grav online. "Please secure yourselves and prepare to engage the target," he called back to them, easing the _Longbow_ up off the landing pad and turning the ship around towards the Hollow thrashing its way across the muddy wilds.

"Wait!" Renji called from the back, gripping the bridge door frame as Uryu slid the ship through the air. "Drop us at my ship, we can help." Ichigo shot a skeptical look at Rukia that Renji caught, growing more angry that she didn't leap to his defense. "Dammit Rukia! You still think I don't believe you? Look out there, if you say one of those things killed the crews on my ships then you can bet your ass I'm looking for some payback."

"Uryu, bring the ship around," Rukia said. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe he was still the man she knew from so long ago.

"Rukia," Ichigo muttered harshly, "You trust him enough to risk all our lives that he won't just run off, or shoot us down?"

"No," Rukia said, a small sadness creeping into her voice as she watched Renji's hurt expression. "You and I are going with them, Hanatoro and Chad, stay aboard the _Longbow_ and do what you can to help Uryu."

"I thought we covered the shooting down part," Shuhei said, eyes out the side viewport, carefully watching the Hollow as it fired another flickering beam of yellow light at the navy strikercraft that had begun cautiously circling it, peppering it with auto-cannon fire and angering it further.

"That's your logic, not mine," Ichigo said. He watched Renji give Uryu the location of his ship as the few still at the spaceport began lifting off and rocketing away. Any type of evacuation was going to be impossible, there weren't enough ships or vehicles in the city, everything was still locked up from the storm, and half the population must still be asleep. Rukia was right, they didn't have very many options.

"What's that?" Shuhei said, turning to peer down at the ground. Sliding around recklessly as it threw up tall plumes of mud, a small four wheeled vehicle came sprinting out of the settlement and was headed straight for the Hollow.

Ichigo leaned over to look, seeing the telltale violet hair through the open roof. The Hollow had noticed her, even from that distance, and dropped down low tearing at ground as it howled at her. "It's Yoruichi, she has the artifact with her."

"She's luring it away from the city," Rukia said. The Hollow shook its massive body as it lifted itself high above the mud and rocks, stringy red muscles pulling and flexing beneath its carapace of jagged metal armor. Bursts of light flared from the engines it had across its back, propelling the Hollow as it leaped into the air. Rukia watched as Yoruichi cut hard to the side, gunning the vehicle as fast as she could for firmer ground. "We have to hurry, she won't last by herself."

Skimming low over the uneven, muddy soil and rocky outcroppings, Uryu spotted Renji's ship and swerved over to hover above it. The ship itself had been well concealed despite how surprisingly large it was, crouched in between a couple of towering spurs of dark rock. "I recognize that ship from somewhere," Ichigo muttered as they lowered the boarding ramp and peered down.

"The _Zabi Maru_ is a decommissioned navy cruiser," Renji said, looking fondly down at it. "We've, uh... re-purposed it."

The four of them hopped out onto the top and Renji immediately slid down the side paneling to land on one of the swept forward wings. He turned and put his hand against a plate, then hurried inside the opening airlock door as the other three followed suit.

"Empty as the shuttle, Renji," Shuhei said as he pulled off his coat and looked through the back. The four of them walked quickly onto the wide bridge that stretched across the entire front of the rather snub-nosed ship.

Renji exhaled in frustration. "Where the hell are they? Shuhei, take the nav console."

"No, I'm running tac which means Ichigo is the pilot," Rukia countered.

"My ship, my rules, my crew flies it."

"Ichigo is only good at one thing," Rukia said, eyes narrowing.

"Hey!" Ichigo interjected.

"And that is flying," Rukia continued.

Renji stared her down. "Shuhei," he ground out, "Take sensors. Let wonder boy fly." The four of them quickly buckled into various stations, activating flight controls and loading systems into their neural links as fast as they could.

Punching the controls, Ichigo lifted the heavy ship up into the air and sent it chasing after Uryu in the _Longbow_. With no inertial dampeners and flying against the turbulent storm driven air as it buffeted the cruiser, he found himself fighting against the mass of the ship as he tried to pick up speed. In the distance they could see the lumbering form of the Hollow as it moved after Yoruichi and the artifact.

"Careful Ichigo, flying through an atmosphere is a lot different from-" Rukia commented

"I know, I know," Ichigo responded, working to correct their flight path. He just needed to clear his head, he figured. Concentrate on the control surfaces, balance the I-Grav, compensate for atmospheric displacement. Easy, right? Ichigo flicked his eyes up to the Hollow in the viewport and frowned. A ship this big was never designed to perform aerial combat maneuvers like Rukia's interceptor. Sure, it would have no trouble trading blows in space or performing surface bombardment, but this monster ship just didn't have the agility she was used to. He'd have to get creative if the need arose.

"Renji," Rukia said, trying to get his attention. She motioned at her consoles as if it was obvious.

"Oh, right," Renji replied. He tapped out a sequence on his own control surface. "Tactical, you have weapons free."

"Navy strikers are waving us off," Shuhei mentioned.

"Don't respond," Rukia said, flicking through available weapon systems trying to determine a loadout that would work as air-to-ground. "The less they know the better off they'll be."

Ahead of them, the _Longbow_ had closed to firing range with the target and was angling far to the side to avoid hitting Yoruichi. The energy lance at the front of Uryu's ship blazed into sudden, incandescent light before unleashing a burst of bright blue lightning down at the Hollow. Fracturing and dispersing terribly, it showered the Hollow and the area around it in arcing beams of thin, searing light. Several of its armored plates scorched and blackened, the Hollow stumbled before turning towards Uryu and opened its enormous jaws impossibly wide, bellowing and unleashing a burst of yellow laser light. Dipping and veering, Uryu dodged most of it but still caught a passing slash across the underside of his ship.

Before Renji could begin barking orders the Hollow leaped with surprising agility at the _Longbow_ , the jets on its back leaving thick, ugly contrails of dark smoke. Weaving, Uryu narrowly avoided the hulking brute's arcing path only to realize that it had never intended to collide with his ship. The massive creature instead dropped right onto a large, craggy outcropping of rock and tore off an enormous boulder, turned and heaved it at the ship as it came around. Two streams of tracer fire from the front autocannons of Renji's ship tracked the thrown boulder, cracking and disintegrating it into harmless pebbles before it could clip the rear of Uryu's ship. Rukia smiled as she moved her targeting reticle back to the Hollow.

"Thanks for the assist, _Zabi Maru,_ " Uryu said over the comms, weaving his ship away from more flickering beams of yellow laser fire.

"Don't mention it, _Longbow_ ," Rukia replied.

Ichigo brought the ship into a sliding turn, facing the front cannons at the Hollow in what he hoped was a fashion Rukia could use. He was rewarded for his efforts as he watched two more twin bursts of tracer fire blasting out at the Hollow, throwing up clouds of dust and debris from the jagged peak it had been standing on. The falling rain cleared away the smoke in seconds, treating them to a clear view of the scored and torn rock face but the creature that had been standing there was gone.

"Shit, reacquiring target," Renji said.

Ichigo pushed the I-Grav hard, forcing them all down into their seats as the ship shot skyward. From their higher vantage they spotted the Hollow, its back engines alight, leaping and bounding away from them with surprising speed. In the distance they could see Yoruichi in the warthog, unaware of the danger fast approaching her. In a move borne of desperation, Ichigo cut the I-Grav completely, letting the moon's gravity pull them into a plummeting free-fall. He quickly extended all control surfaces to max, pitched the nose down, and opened the air-breathing engines to full. Without the I-Grav, as Ichigo pulled back hard to bring the nose up the cruiser was buoyed only by whatever lift it could muster from the wings, structures never designed to support the mass of the ship in an atmosphere. In his haste to catch up Ichigo took his eyes off the front viewport to concentrate solely on his controls, tuning out the yelling and cursing of Renji and Shuhei as the front viewport was filled mostly with the image of the ground rushing up to meet them. Feeling it, Ichigo re-engaged the I-Grav, slowly pushing it to max resistance and leveling off their descent, their velocity from free fall slingshotting them into forward momentum.

"I swear, if you do that kind of thing one more time to _my_ ship I will personally-"

"Shut up!" Ichigo and Rukia yelled at once. Bringing the ship around to where the Hollow was headed, weapons trained for any sign of the target, they looked up to see it standing against another tower of rock, tearing the comparatively tiny warthog apart.

Ice water freezing in the pit of his stomach, he watched in terrible detail as the Hollow broke the vehicle in half. Bits of metal and debris rained down as it brought one half to its mouth and greedily bit down, grinding and tearing off huge pieces.

"Look!" Rukia said, bracketing a moving shape nimbly dodging the falling chunks of metal as it scrambled down the rock face, a metal canister clutched in her hands and rich purple hair streaming out behind.

The Hollow caught sight of her as well, throwing aside what remained of the warthog and bellowing after her. It rose itself to its full height and took a bead on the running figure, preparing to fire but only to screaming in agony, faltering and clutching at a sudden wound. A long, pointed shaft stood quivering in the cold air, deeply embedded in the sinewy muscle tissue between the Hollow's armor plating.

"What was-," Ichigo muttered as the four of them turned to look at the _Longbow._ Standing on the lowered boarding ramp, Chad tore off and hefted another impossibly long piece of narrow metal, the tip sharp and wicked, and hurled it like a javelin down at the monstrous Hollow. It tried to deflect but couldn't move fast enough, the impromptu spear skewering it deeply through the shoulder.

"That works too," Renji said, mildly impressed.

The tip of Uryu's ship flared into bright light as it charged up another energy lance. The Hollow, black ichorous blood bubbling and spurting from its wounds, fell as it clawed and yanked at the spears. A thunderous crack shook the air as the _Longbow_ loosed its blue energy blast, instantly boiling away both armor and flesh facing the ship.

"Rukia," Renji said, rising from his seat and staring down into the alien, eyeless shield-like face of the Hollow, pinned to the rock face and seething with hatred. "Show that fucker how loud the _Zabi Maru_ can roar."

Her aim focused, her resolve hardened and her fingers on the firing controls, Rukia used the twin autocannons like a scythe, cleaving the Hollow in half with a slicing burst of tracer fire. She let out a breath she didn't she was holding as she watched it topple limply from its perch, the flesh of it shriveling and rotting as its metal plating cracked apart and shattered. By the time it reached the muddy dirt it was nothing but blasted scraps of metal and unidentifiable pieces of half-digested parts, an unrecognizable pile of junk and debris.

"Splash one," Rukia said, letting herself go limp at the tactical station, slouching in the chair and resting her head back against the seat. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands as she worked on letting go of the adrenalin.

* * *

"You sure that thing will work?" Rukia asked. She peered closer at the cobbled together shielding device the artifact was presently sitting in.

"It should work fine now we're off the surface," Yoruichi replied, also looking critically at the device. "It probably leaks a little, but out here it'll be masked too much for the Hollows to find."

"Clearing the locks now, so this is the Bowman's service station huh? Seems pretty creepy," Renji said as Ichigo guided the ship back into the dark drydock of the derelict factory vessel. Even the large cruiser was dwarfed by the enormity of the factory facility.

"Hey Rukia, we have a problem here," Ichigo called out from the front and center station of the bridge.

"There should be plenty of room to land next to the _Red Princess,_ " Rukia said, stepping up next to him and looking out the front viewport. "Oh," she said as Ichigo swept the landing lights across the drydock. The very empty drydock. Rukia's hand clenched Ichigo's shoulder as he continued to pan the lights around until, finally, they settled on a small, white ship parked far out of the way. Breathing a sigh of relief, Rukia sheepishly released Ichigo's shoulder before crossing her arms in irked frustration.

"Alright, so less of a problem than before, but still a problem," Ichigo said. "Where do you think he went?"

"Who cares. The man is the biggest opportunist I've ever seen, at least he left my ship," Rukia replied.

"You think he'd leave without Yoruichi? Or the artifact?" Ichigo noted, thumbing back over his shoulder.

"Good point," Rukia conceded, pursing her lips as she watched Ichigo gently set the cruiser down near her interceptor. "So what would make him take off without telling us?"

"Must've been something important. He left your ship, so that means he wasn't planning on coming back."

"I'm getting tired of these questions, it's time we start getting some answers," Rukia said as the two of them headed for the airlock. Standing on the front guidance winglet together, they watched Uryu angle his ship in to land next to the _Zabi Maru_. Together with Renji and Shuhei, they stepped down to the surface of the drydock as Uryu cycled down his engines and the lowered the boarding ramp, Chad and Hanatoro stepping out to meet them. The two groups coming together, Ichigo and Rukia noticed that everyone was looking in their direction.

"Fix the ship?" Ichigo asked.

"Yeah, good idea," Rukia replied.

"I'll help you," Chad said as Ichigo headed past, leaving Rukia with the others.

"What are you going to do now?" Rukia asked Renji, watching him stand there rubbing his chin.

"Gotta head back to the surface and find my crew, pick up my shuttle and smooth things over with the navy about the bar," Renji replied.

"Think you can give Chad there a lift? He's got his own crew down on the surface," Rukia asked, looking over at the tall man helping Ichigo unload the _Longbow's_ cargo bay.

"Sure, no problem. After that display of monster spear fishing I figure we owe him."

Rukia turned to Yoruichi, the same question she asked Renji forming on her lips. Yoruichi cut her off, saying, "I just need a ride to the transport interchange around Junrinan Eight. I'll book a flight back to Karakura Station and look for Kisuke there." Uryu, who had been eying the damage done to the underside of his ship, graciously offered his assistance.

"What about you?" Renji asked.

Rukia turned back to him to see his eyes soften slightly. She was about to speak when her stomach gurgled loudly. Cringing in embarrassment, she asked, "You don't have any food on your ship, do you?"

* * *

"So this is what you and the new girl do? Hunt down monsters?" Chad asked, easily handling the larger parts while Ichigo carefully aligned the smaller ones, fitting the missing components to the complex engine like it was some enormous puzzle.

"Her name is Rukia, and yeah, I guess that's what we do." Taking the next component, Ichigo pulled himself up onto the top of the ship, the open engine bay below him. Laying down, his flashlight held in his lips and his hands occupied with tools and parts, he opened his neural link's memory registers and paged through the design documents for the engine, mentally taking it apart, matching and rotating components and then reassembling it, letting his hands mimic what he did in his mind.

"This is a nice ship," Chad said.

"Yeah," Ichigo said distractedly, "She's something alright." He worked in companionable silence with Chad until there wasn't anything left for the towering man to do. Absorbed in his work, Ichigo halfheartedly waved as Chad dusted off his hands and headed to Renji's ship. He bent back down and continued working, ignoring the tiny nicks he was getting across his knuckles and protests of his hungry stomach.

* * *

Showered and dressed, sipping at her second cup of coffee, Rukia pushed the empty plate away and felt like a new woman. Standing from the small table in Renji's modestly stocked galley, she picked up her plate and took care of it as she headed back up towards the bridge. Passing Chad and Shuhei sitting in what used to be the commander's conference room when this was still a navy ship, she could hear them playing an acoustic arrangement of some popular song as she went by.

"Any response from the shuttle?" she asked, setting down her coffee cup and looking at Renji, hunkered over the communications station trying vainly to raise any member of his missing crew.

"No," Renji replied wearily. He stood from his console and removed the heavy goggles from his brow, wiping away the sweat that collected underneath. "Feel better?"

"Yes, thank you," Rukia replied. She could feel it already, their conversation slipping into formal tones and safe topics before they even started talking. She watched Renji look up and peer out the front viewport towards her ship. Bathed by one of the landing lights, Ichigo was standing on top of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , his bright orange hair glowing like a flame against the gloomy backdrop of the dock facility. His fingers danced across the air in front of him as if he was playing an invisible instrument, his head whipping around above him, focusing intently on displays and readouts only he could see. Rukia wondered idly just how many displays and controls he had opened before she saw bright light blossom from the engine vents at the rear of her ship. Both vents.

"Oh please," Renji said, rolling his eyes. Lathered in sweat, Ichigo had taken off the blue flowered shirt Chad had lent him and set it aside before continuing to work on the engines.

"How long has he been out there?" Rukia asked, attempting to use conversation as cover for the fact that she was staring at Ichigo. Reminded of the night prior and this morning, she'd only had a couple of glimpses when he hadn't been covered by a thick blanket. He was tall and lean, the muscles corded along his arms and chest built from work rather than crafted by training and exercise.

"What do you mean?" Renji asked, "He hasn't stopped working."

"Dammit Renji," Rukia said, sobering instantly, "He must be starving, and you're content to just let him?"

"I'm not about to do your boyfriend any favors, if he wants to come in, fine."

"He isn't my boyfriend, he's my pilot," Rukia said. She watched him chew back a retort as he crossed his arms.

"Dont worry about Ichigo," Chad said, stepping onto the bridge and looking out at him. "He'll come over here when he's done."

"He's still out there?" Shuhei asked, stepping around Chad and sitting at a station. "Why?"

"It is broken," Chad said simply, "And he knows it is important, and he knows how to fix it, so he will."

"He'll keep working just to, what? Have the satisfaction of fixing it?" she asked as Chad turned to her.

"I don't know why," Chad said. "Only that it is the way he is."

Rukia sighed. Glowering at the idiocy of men in general and her pilot in specific, she stomped to the galley and grabbed a container of water, then turned and headed to the airlock. Walking over to her ship, Ichigo sitting on top of it and carefully adjusting different engine parameters, she narrowed her eyes and hurled the container of water directly at him.

"Hey!" Ichigo yelled, seeing the arcing bottle as it streaked towards his head. He clumsily fumbled the container before securing a proper hold, only then turning to see Rukia vault lithely up onto a wing and approach him, a dangerous look in her eye. "What's your problem?"

"Why are you still fiddling with the ship?"

"Because," he said, stretching the word out, "It's still not fixed."

"And we've got loads of time to fix it, we're not running for our lives, being shot at by pirates, or attacked by Hollows. But here you are, pale and haggard and," she sniffed, "Reeking. Go clean yourself off, eat something, and try not trip, fall, and die on your way off my ship. I am perfectly capable of taking over." She took hold of the crook of his arm and hauled him to his feet.

Scowling, he half-pushed himself, half-let himself be pulled, to standing upright. "Fine," he snarled. Reactivating their shared link, he dumped his entire display buffer over to her before twisting off the cap and drinking deeply from the container. "The stuff in red still needs work," he said, motioning around with his water bottle.

"Ichigo, there's like, a hundred display panels open," Rukia said, staring around at them, spread like a dome around the ship. Diagrams, schematics, rotating part assemblies and mathematical equations glowed back at her.

"Yeah," Ichigo said, sliding down the cowling and landing on the drydock surface. "It's just final calibrations mostly. I made some minor adjustments, we should see an engine performance increase of two and a half percent at full burn." Ichigo stretched his back and worked the kinks out of his shoulders, heading gratefully over to Renji's ship. Pulling himself up to the airlock, he walked in to see Chad look over at him as he stood on the bridge.

"Hey Ichigo, you let Rukia take over," he said.

"Huh? Oh yeah, why?" The gravity of Chad's statement apparently didn't register.

"I don't think you've ever done that before," Chad asserted. "You must trust her."

Ichigo paused, realization dawning on his face. He looked out the viewport at Rukia, taking off her jacket and beginning to calibrate the engines, an errant lock of her midnight hair hanging across her face as she focused on the displays and controls. "Yeah, she's something alright."

* * *

Ichigo and Rukia sat in the open canopy of the _Sode no Shirayuki,_ the Shihoin artifact secured in the small cargo area at the rear of the ship's rather closet-shaped cabin, and together they watched the _Zabi Maru_ and _Longbow_ lift off and slowly cruise towards the shiplock door, leaving them alone in the deserted factory drydock.

"I guess it's just us again," Ichigo said.

"Looks that way," Rukia replied, skimming the engine diagnostic readouts as she buckled herself into her station.

"How did the engine performance measurement turn out?" Ichigo asked, buckling himself in as well.

"Two point five _eight_ percent above nominal."

"Nice, that should shave a few seconds off our max acceleration time." Ichigo watched the canopy close around them, sealing with light whir and a soft hiss.

Their idle conversation dwindled as Ichigo guided them past the shiplock doors and out into open space. He found astrometrics data on their destination waiting for him and plotted out a route to where she needed to go, all the while formulating how to approach the subject of what happened between them that morning.

"Uh, Rukia? About this morning," he began. _Real subtle,_ he thought to himself.

"Yes Ichigo?" she said.

The edge that had been in her voice all morning was gone, leaving it soft, feminine. It was just as well he was facing away from her, he could well imagine the coy smile curving her lips, the delicate tilt of her head exposing the skin of her neck, the smoldering, fierce hunger in her eyes. Two words was all she had said to him, and they had been enough to make his mouth dry and his chest feel tight. "I, uh... just wanted to know where we stand."

Rukia pulled her hair behind her as they moved beyond the A-Grav of the factory ship and thought about her answer, again. It had been firmly entrenched at the back of her mind, rising up to demand her attention whenever she'd had a free moment so far. "Ichigo, I want to... but I need time to think. Let me just sort out what to put in my report and I promise we'll focus on it once everything has settled. We'll have plenty of time as we head back to Karakura Station."

Ichigo nodded, not too surprised. It was obviously unfamiliar ground to both of them. With her grueling work schedule and his father-imposed exile, neither of them had had much of a chance to develop a wealth of experience in personal relationships. The physical attraction was pretty undeniable and they shared more than a few things in common, and they could argue. Powering up the interceptor's engines to full burn, it struck him that that had been one of the missing facets in his one other significant relationship. He had never fought with Orihime, either of them had always been too quick to bend to the other whenever contention arose. Part of it was obviously that they had been young and inexperienced, and that after their education had been completed that a deeper relationship had felt expected by all their peers. It was safe because the decision to be together had essentially already been made for them. All they had to do was try to make the other feel happy.

It hadn't lasted, of course. Neither of them truly had the chance to get to know the other real person beforehand, too warded off by the angry scowl of one and the non-confrontational nature of the other. When they had finally learned that beneath Ichigo's mask was a man nearly equal parts selflessness and self-loathing, and that beyond the bubbly airhead facade Orihime maintained in public, she was sensitive, observant, and self-reliant, it was already too late. They had built a relationship upon preconceived notions, and when it fell apart the two of them were the only ones not surprised.

Ichigo laced his fingers behind his head, a habitual motion and totally futile in zero gravity, as he let his mind wander, the infinite blackness of space luring him into darker memories. His breakup with Orihime had left him alone with his inner demons, guilt and depression. Without anyone to talk to, he found himself down a dark road of self-destruction and in the end, it had been Chad and Tatsuki, not Orihime, who had pulled him from his spiral of selfishness and misery. At which point his father had taken them all on an extended tour of the far outer orbits and the rim, he sighed. As much as he may hate to admit it, Ichigo couldn't help the feeling that his father had done the right thing in giving him a responsibility, time to think, and literally all the space he needed to work through what had always plagued him.

So now here he was, old enough to haved moved beyond the social awkwardness of youth but still terribly inept at dealing with the fairer sex, he laughed at himself. At least Rukia didn't seem to mind, but they had met under circumstances not usually found in normal social settings. He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankle beneath the console, trusting that Rukia was right; once she had reported in on this recent adventure things would be back to normal and they'd have all the time in the world. At the same time, however, experience said that nothing was ever that simple.

"So where we going anyway?" he asked, reviewing their flightpath. He had been lost in thought for a while, they had to be getting near their destination by now.

"The closest place I know of to contact a G-13 officer. We're actually lucky one is so close."

"Why is that?"

"Because 'covert' is the operative word of 'covert operative'. We don't exactly advertise Ichigo. The less everyone knows, the safer everyone is."

"Well regardless, we're coming up on a hot contact," Ichigo said, watching the sensor screen and threat assessment system light up. "Designation coming up as... the _Flower of Heaven_? Are you sure this is the right place?"

"This is the place alright," she replied, logging her own ship's designation to the contact. It would be a few more minutes until they had visual contact and could request docking permission.

"But, that is a luxury yacht. I thought this was supposed to be a G-13 ship," Ichigo asked.

"It is," Rukia said lightly, enjoying his confusion. "Tell me, with the combat control surfaces retracted and the weapon bays closed, what does my ship look like?"

"I dunno, some new model sports speeder or short-range racer, something like that," Ichigo replied.

"Exactly, I don't have to camouflage my ship too much, but larger G-13 warships do, and the guys at our shipyard can work miracles."

"You're telling me that the _Flower of Heaven_ , is a warship?"

"When fully deployed for combat it's re-designated as the _Boneshaker Madness_ , and it is easily one of the most fearsome in the system." She ignored Ichigo as he made a noise of disbelief. "The captain of this ship is also the commander of the G-13's Eighth Fleet, and is a close friend of my own commanding officer."

Ichigo didn't respond, too busy squinting into the dark at a growing shape against the black. He cycled down the engines and coasted in closer, slowing their approach with tiny puffs from the directional thrusters.

"This is Snow White, of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , to the _Flower of Heaven._ Permission requested to approach and dock for the purpose of reporting and debriefment,"Rukia entered into an encrypted comm channel.

There was a brief pause before she heard a rather surprised voice in her ear. "We read you Snow White, you are cleared at airlock one. Sending approach path."

"They've sent a nav route to the docking point," Ichigo said, unaware of the communication between Rukia and the yacht.

"Yes, we've been cleared to come aboard. Now, this vessel is crewed by ranked officers and respected personnel so don't embarrass me. Just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking."

Ichigo guided the ship into position as Rukia unbuckled her harness and floated to the cabin. Reaching up to the ceiling, she tapped out a command to slide away the paneling concealing the ship's small docking point as the armor plating across the exterior folded up, revealing the outer door and mooring points. Carefully, Ichigo made minor adjustments as he lined up the docking clamps to the mooring points, finally nudging the ship against the airlock. Loud clanks echoed through the small ship as the mooring controls engaged, locking the ship in place and sealing the airlock around the exterior door.

"Docking complete," Ichigo called back to her.

"We've got a green seal, airlock secure," Rukia called back.

"Are we going to need helmets?" Ichigo asked as he unbuckled his harness and floated back towards her. She was already unbolting the docking point door and pushing it up into the airlock above them.

"No, we shouldn't," Rukia said, floating up into the airlock and adjusting to the pull of the A-Grav. It was slightly disorienting, going from the feeling of moving upwards from the interceptor's cabin and landing on what looked like the wall of the airlock, only to stand up on what was actually the floor. She turned back to watch Ichigo float head-first through the small circular door into the airlock and land unceremoniously on the floor at her feet, snatched by the A-Grav before he could correct himself.

"Fucking space," Ichigo grumbled as he stood up and straightened his black and white interceptor flightsuit, identical to the one Rukia wore, "Wasn't made for tall people."

Rukia would have humorously pointed out that space was plenty big when the larger airlock doors on the other side of the chamber hissed and swung open. Her comment died on her lips as she watched a pair of marines in plated softsuits enter the airlock, weapons held at the ready but not necessarily threatening. Standing at attention on either side of the open airlock door, their faces were unreadable behind combat helmets but they drew up sharply as another figure entered between them. Standing primly, her bridge uniform crisp and tailored to perfection, the figure stared through her oval rimmed glasses, calculating and expressionless.

"Lieutenant Ise?" Rukia said, somewhat surprised at being met by a bridge officer. She quickly snapped into salute posture, feet together and her hand angled against the edge of her eyebrow. _What is she doing here,_ Rukia's mind whirled _._

Ichigo watched the Lieutenant arch an eyebrow at Rukia's salute, but not return it. Instead, she calmly slid a thin display board from beneath her arm and look down at it, her other hand lightly pressing a few select controls on its surface. There was something wrong here.

"Rukia Kuchiki, please surrender your weapons," said the Lieutenant without looking back up from her display board.

Hesitating with uncertainty, Rukia shot a slightly puzzled look at her as she slid her twin firearms from their holsters and passed them over to the marine who approached. He took them swiftly and silently, then returned to his post by the airlock door.

"Thank you, your willingness to cooperate has been noted. If you will follow me," she said as she turned and walked from the airlock.

Ichigo fell into step next to Rukia as the marines slipped in behind them. "Is this normal?" he whispered out the side of his mouth.

"Each fleet operates a little differently, just act natural," Rukia whispered back, earning them a stern look from the Lieutenant.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ichigo muttered.

Rukia was beginning to feel the same way, but didn't want to admit it, not in front of Lieutenant Ise anyway. Instead, she quietly followed in her wake, memorizing the route back to her ship. Walking down the corridors, she noticed their little procession was being met by curious gazes from the crew of the ship, peeking at them from open doorways and the edges of the hall.

"If I may ask Lieutenant, where are we going?" Rukia asked.

"To speak to the Captain, he's on the observation deck. It's his decision what to do in the end anyway," she replied.

Rukia couldn't think. She certainly had no intention of delivering her report to the Lieutenant, and now she was being taken to the Captain? Too numb to consider what she had meant by 'his decision' Rukia mutely followed the Lieutenant, worry mounting with every step.

As they neared the observation deck, Ichigo noticed the detailing in the wood grain accents of the corridor wall paneling. The soft, indirect lighting lit the corridor with a warm glow and the air circulating through the halls was fresh and pure. He began to wonder how much of this ship was actually a luxury yacht and how much was a warship.

They arrived at a large doorway that parted with a wave of the Lieutenant's hand and walked aboard the observation deck. Stepping through, Rukia and Ichigo's eyes were immediately drawn upwards towards the enormous domed viewport, filling the entire ceiling with a panoramic view of Junrinan Five in all its molten, volcanic fury juxtaposed to the cool blue bands of clouds of its parent planet, the twin suns of the system far in the distance. Taking another step, their eyes dropped to their feet as they crunched over actual tumbled white gravel laid out in a path between manicured lawns of real grass.

The sound of running water cascading over rocks in a small stream underpinned some operatic melody playing softly across the deck, and Ichigo could see they were being lead to a man lying on the grass, his head behind one arm while the other lazily waved to the music.

"Hello Nanao," the man said without shifting or opening his eyes, "I could smell your perfume. Like wildflowers on a summer day."

"Indeed, or you heard us walking up the path and knew that only I disturb you on your observation deck," she replied acerbically.

"Us?" He sat up and laid his arms across his drawn up knees. His eyebrows drew up, then back down as he sighed and heaved himself to his feet, brushing off his somewhat wrinkled uniform with careless indifference. His jacket was unzipped and Ichigo could see a faded pink tee-shirt hiding beneath.

He stepped over next to his Lieutenant, the two of them looking like opposing poles of the 'proper attire' spectrum. While she was pressed and immaculate, her hair done up simply but elegantly, he looked casual and comfortable, a scruffy growth of beard across his strong jaw that looked like no amount of shaving could erase and his rather long hair pulled to a messy tail behind his head. Together, they looked back at Ichigo and Rukia, both of them wearing flightsuits from the _Sode no Shirayuki_ as Ichigo self-consciously ran a hand across his own jaw, feeling a day's worth of stubble.

"Captain Kyoraku, sir," Rukia said, again saluting.

"At ease, Miss Kuchiki," he said. "I admit, I was surprised when I heard what happened. I appreciate you coming to me, but I don't understand your motivations."

"Motivations, sir?" Rukia asked, dropping her hand and crossing them behind her back. "And, if I may ask, why aren't I being addressed by rank?"

Captain Kyoraku tilted his head at her quizzically, his piercing gray eyes shifting between Ichigo and Rukia. "Before I get to that, I understand you have a report to turn in on your recent encounters?"

"Yes, sir," Rukia replied. She watched a transfer notice appear in her vision as the Lieutenant tapped a few commands on her board, into which Rukia placed the report she compiled covering the flight of the _Red Princess,_ the pirate ambush and fight with the Hollows, as well as the summary of the planetside Hollow attack defeated by the _Zabi Maru_ and the _Longbow._ She watched the Captain take the board and begin walking across the grass, his eyes down on the report. Rukia noticed he was barefoot as he paced, absentmindedly rubbing his chin as he continued to study the board, his mouth quirking into an awkward expression.

He finally stopped, shooting his eyes from the board back to Rukia. "Well, I admit, this isn't what I thought it was going to be."

"Sir, it is an account of my activities as an Operative of the G-13 in the last forty eight hours," she checked her neural link for the time, "Or so."

"But that's just it, Rukia," he said, running a hand across his wavy brown hair. "You're not an Operative of the G-13 anymore."

"I... I don't understand, sir," Rukia stuttered. She felt her eyes widen as her gut clenched uncomfortably and her palms get clammy. She forced herself to remain in parade rest posture, drawing on her soldier training and the discipline her brother had demanded.

"Have you not seen the news?" Kyoraku asked, "Or had any communications from central command, or your own commanding officer?"

"No sir," Rukia replied, "This is my first contact with anyone in the G-13. I am under standing orders to supply reports of activities taken in official capacity, so that's why I am here."

"But Rukia," he said sadly. "The activities you've just admitted to have taken in official capacity," he held up the display board, "Have had serious repercussions." He turned away from them, looking out the huge viewport to the moon and planet beyond. "Nanao, place them under arrest," he said as he handed the board back to her.

"Rukia Kuchiki, former Operative of the Thirteenth Fleet of the G-13," she read from the display board. "You are under arrest for the crimes of grand larceny, industrial espionage, conspiracy, trafficking in stolen property, collusion with organized crime, destruction of public property, and three counts of murder in the first degree. Additionally, you are under military arrest for revealing top secret military information, dereliction of duty, and disobeying direct orders. For these reasons," Lieutenant Ise looked up from her display board, leveling her gaze directly at Rukia, "You and your accomplices have been labeled enemies of the state."

"But, it's not true," Rukia said, her world starting to crumble around her.

"Inspection of your ship has revealed the object known as the Shihoin Artifact in your cargo hold, concealed within a sensor shielding device," Nanao said, adjusting her glasses. "Analysis of your surrendered firearms confirms they were used in three shootings on Junrinan Two, as well as the demolition of part of the city infrastructure. This recording," she pressed a control on her display board and the music cut out across the deck, replaced by Uryu's voice saying 'Thanks for the assist, _Zabi Maru_ ' followed by Rukia saying 'Don't mention it, _Longbow,_ ' "Has an identical voiceprint to your own, proving you were on board that pirate vessel. Perhaps most damning is the presence of your pilot right in front of us, a civilian with full knowledge of the G-13."

"This is bullshit. Rukia, we've been set up," Ichigo said angrily.

"Ichigo," Rukia said harshly, "Keep your mouth _shut._ " Rukia immediately turned back to the Captain, saying, "Ichigo Kurosaki deserves special dispensation as far as sensitive military information. His ship was attacked by a Hollow and he saved my life. His continued actions have facilitated in the execution of my duties above and beyond what my standing orders entail."

Captain Kyoraku turned back to Rukia, his eyes hard. "And you think you're qualified to make that type of decision?" He took a step forward and suddenly went from a man in comfortable clothes enjoying his observation deck to the captain of one of the most powerful warships in the system. "I suppose it didn't even occur to you to leave Mister Kurosaki to his fate? To do what you've been trained to do in these situations? Just like it didn't occur to you to actually follow the orders given to you by the navy strikercraft during the Hollow attack on Junrinan Two?"

"What's he talking about? We saved people's lives back there," Ichigo said, growing more angry as Rukia grew more defeated.

"That's precisely the point," Rukia said somberly. "If we had pulled back and let the navy strikers continue to fight the Hollow, they would've been killed. Since we didn't, they're still alive."

"Yeah, and?" Ichigo fumed.

"And that's the problem," Rukia said.

"The G-13 is, at this moment, disappearing those individuals, scrubbing any submitted official reports and whitewashing the entire incident. So now instead of dying in combat, those men and women are being quickly erased," Captain Kyoraku said, shaking his head at the thought. "Their families and loved ones will have no record of what happened to them, they'll be labeled AWOL, and summarily dishonorably discharged. And it will be your fault."

Looking askance at Rukia's downturned eyes, Ichigo pressed on saying, "Well, what's that crap about espionage and stolen property? We didn't steal anything."

"You are in possession of the Shihoin Artifact, recently stolen from the Shihoin research compound in a manner similar to the thefts executed at the other noble houses, including your own. If anyone would know the security measures in place and how to defeat them so soundly, it would be a member of that house with the training and resources available to manage it. It all points to you, Rukia," Captain Kyoraku said.

"But that thing is Yoruichi's!" Ichigo asserted.

"Yes, we are aware of the identities of your associates," Lieutenant Ise said. "It is not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that two disaffected members of noble houses would work together to further their own ends." She turned the display board towards them, images of Rukia and Yoruichi walking across the city and riding together in the warthog flicking by.

"But, this..." Ichigo tried to find words to express his frustration at the injustice of it all.

"Ichigo," Rukia said, lightly laying a hand on his arm and looking up to him.

"This is a set up," Ichigo said desperately down to her.

"I know, but it's too well done," Rukia said. "Half of these charges are technically true. The others have too much evidence to support them for there to be any other interpretation."

"Marines," Lieutenant Ise called out, "Take them to the brig."


	15. Jailhouse Confession

"Well, this day is not going how I thought it would when I woke up," Ichigo said, sitting against the wall of the claustrophobically small cell. Legs stretched out, his feet could touch the facing wall. "Enemies of the state? Seriously?"

Sitting on the opposite side of the same wall in an adjacent cell, Rukia tried to ignore him as she ran her fingers through her hair and went over what had happened, again. It was proving difficult, she found everything to be so incongruous she was having trouble fitting it all together cohesively.

"And organized crime? Do they mean Renji? He doesn't seem very organized to me."

Rukia ground her teeth and closed her eyes. She got up and slumped into the small cot that folded down from the wall. Throwing her arm over her eyes, she tried again to find some order to what had happened, naturally calling up her neural link only to feel it fuzz and flicker, deactivated by ship's brig inhibitors. She sighed as Ichigo continued talking, mostly to himself.

"What did he mean?" Ichigo eventually asked, knocking on the wall and forcing her from her reverie.

"What did who mean?" she asked wearily.

"When Kyoraku-"

" _Captain_ Kyoraku," she corrected.

"When he said you didn't do what you've been trained to do," Ichigo said.

She sighed. "Ichigo, the G-13 is covert operations, off the radar of most of the colonial navy. We're black ops, so black that our ops aren't supposed to exist, let alone get reported. We have to carry out our missions and follow orders without anyone, the population, the general navy, no one, getting wind of it. It means that I'm not supposed to just pick up guys I see floating in space and tell them all about Hollows and my ship and everything."

"What are you supposed to do when people find out?"

"You heard Captain Kyoraku, they disappear."

Curiosity got the better of him. "And... have you ever 'disappeared' anyone?"

"Do you really want the answer to that question? Think hard Ichigo," she said, bristling.

Ichigo backed off, having all the answer he wanted. They two of them lapsed into a tense silence. In the utter quiet, he could only barely hear the sounds of the ship and feel the vibrations in the tips of his fingers. "I suppose that's what's going to happen to us?"

Rukia sat up, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. "I don't know," she said.

"I see," Ichigo replied. He was quiet for a long time after that.

She laid back down and put her arm over her eyes again, feeling thoroughly miserable. What in the worlds had possessed her to bring him into her ship, let alone her entire secret war, was beyond her. She was bound to her responsibility to keep her mission a secret, the gravity of their actions and the nature of the enemy the G-13 battled couldn't be understood by the general public. Selfishly, she had abandoned that mission when she brought him aboard. It would have been far better if she could have simply forgot all about him, and forced herself to stay far away from him.

* * *

"Ichigo?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"It was a mistake." She swallowed past the dry lump in her throat.

"What was?" he asked.

"This morning," she said, her voice remaining steady. "I shouldn't have kissed you. I stepped over the line."

"There's a line?" he asked.

"Yes, I don't know what came over me, stress I assume. I reacted poorly and took advantage of you," she admitted. "I'm sorry."

"Not really anything to be sorry about. If anything it makes things a bit more clear."

"What? Dammit Ichigo, are you even listening to me?"

"Sure, you're trying to apologize for something you shouldn't. You don't hear me complaining about it," he pointed out.

"Well, we're just supposed to be work partners, that's it. It's not supposed to be anything more than that," she asserted.

"Oh yeah? You trying to convince me, our yourself?"

"We were fine before it happened, let's just go back to that."

"So you'd go back to stealing glances at each other while we change, or quickening our breath if we touch?" Ichigo asked archly.

"What... what are you talking about? You don't know me, you don't know anything about me."

"It's pretty obvious you try to keep everyone at arm's length, remember what you said about Momo? She's your best friend but she doesn't even know your real name," he said. "You kissed me, you liked it, and it's messing you up. You're so wrapped up in your comfortable isolation that you don't even realize it." It wasn't so much of an accusation as it was a simple statement.

"It's safer that way-"

"Hey Rukia, I know a bit about being alone. Trust me, it's the easiest thing in the world, no one to let down, no one to stress over. You get to start to think it feels safe but that's only because it numbs you so you can't feel anything, and then you end up not _wanting_ to feel anything because it's too weird and uncomfortable."

"What could you know of being alone?" she asked, livid that he would presume such a point of view. "You have a family that loves you, and friends willing to risk their lives just to help you."

"You think I don't know what it's like? Feeling detached from everyone around you? Unable to relate because you're so convinced you're not worthy of their company, that they'd be better off if they never met you?"

"Don't..." Rukia's mouth was dry. Her mind spiraled back into memories of scraping by as an orphan, running from the navy, stealing what she could. Living on Renji's ship, lying awake next to him wondering how to make it through the next day as she sat at the weapons controls. Living in the Kuchiki manor, hidden away like some dreadful secret, a steady stream of tutors endlessly drilling her on the proper etiquette of nobility all under the dispassionate, ashamed supervision of her new brother.

"You think I don't know what it's like, to think so little of yourself that you don't have any trouble risking your life? You're fighting a threat that people don't even know about, and wouldn't miss you if you were killed, but you're suddenly concerned about it being 'safer' when it comes to you yourself?"

"You're a fool," she uttered as harshly as she could muster. "Look around us, we're not getting out of this. All I wanted to do was tell you I was sorry for..."

"For kissing me?"

"Yes, I-"

"And you call me the fool," he said, mocking her. "If I'm a fool, then you're a coward, too concerned with being safe than to let yourself try to get close to anyone."

She gaped at the wall between them. "Did you just call me a coward?"

"I've never been one to plan out every little thing," he said offhand. "But it's part of who I am. If I ignored it just because it sometimes makes things difficult, well then I'd be ignoring something that can make things great too. I knew the risks when I kissed you back and I'd do it again, even if I knew this would happen. You ever consider that it might not have been stress this morning, maybe you really did want to kiss me, and now you're trying to backpedal because it makes things difficult? Well tough, I'm bad enough at this kinda thing by myself, if I'm working my ass off then so are you."

"You're not getting it! Look around us, is this the kind of situation you really want to get involved in?"

"Just because we were arrested doesn't change anything that happened this morning. I'm not going to let you try to assuage your guilt over us getting locked up by apologizing for something that doesn't have anything to do with it."

Infuriated at his unflagging stubbornness and annoyingly sharp perception, she sat there fuming for a long, silent minute. "You're not going to let me say it was a mistake, are you?" she asked eventually.

"If it was a mistake, you would have realized it at the time. Since you didn't I can only assume you enjoyed it. Since you enjoyed it, but think you're not entitled to it, you think it must have been wrong in the first place, which is why you're trying to apologize for it now that you've had time to sit and dwell on it."

"I swear, I'm rubbing off on you," she muttered.

"Where you're wrong is thinking you're not entitled to it. I spent too long in that frame of mind and my friends finally pulled me out of that funk. People need other people, otherwise we're just... hollow. Deep down, whether you're aware of it or not, you know this just as much as I do."

Ichigo and Rukia stared quietly at the walls of their cells after that, both absorbed in their thoughts.

"I take back my apology," she said quietly. Such simple words, and the weight of their implication, made her feel like she might be crushed beneath them. She felt raw and exposed, somehow so much more naked now than how she had felt after they had stripped their clothes.

"Good," he said honestly. "Beats being alone, doesn't it?"

"I don't know yet, it's weird and uncomfortable," she reflected, a smile starting to curve her lips as the weight began to ease off her shoulders. "So, where does that leave us?" Rukia asked softly.

"I dunno," he shrugged.

"But... but you had all the answers a minute ago!" she said.

"Hey, if you want to talk about loneliness and social maladjustment, I'm right there with ya," he replied, "Beyond that, I'm as clueless as you are."

"You can be so ridiculously frustrating," she grumbled.

"Right back at ya," he chuckled, crossing his legs and lacing his hands behind his head. He heard her groan wearily in response.

* * *

"Rukia, are you there?"

"Yes, of course I am, where else would I be?" she said back at him. She had no idea how much time had passed.

"I'm working on figuring out what happened that got us thrown in jail," he said.

"A fine idea, excellent use of your time," she said sarcastically, "Let me know if you come up with any brilliant theories." She realized too late she had given him tacit permission to start talking out loud again.

"Alright, well I figure there's two main issues," Ichigo said, holding up two fingers and staring at them.

"Only two?" Rukia asked, still exasperated.

Ichigo did his best to not let Rukia's sour mood affect him. The two of them had ended up in unfamiliar emotional territory and it had put her on edge, not to mention that her honor and integrity as a soldier of the colonial navy had been reduced to dust. Without those, Rukia was obviously at a loss for what to do. "Yeah, two. The first is obviously that someone set us up to take the fall for the thefts of the artifacts."

"You know we're being recorded, right?"

"Meh. The second is even if we did _some_ of that stuff, it made it to official channels along with your name awfully fast."

"We live in an information age, Ichigo. Stuff moves around at the speed of light you know. Besides, who would want to set us up like this? I've been trying, nothing makes sense and I can't think of anyone who hates me this much."

"That just means it isn't personal."

Such a simple statement shook Rukia into mental clarity. "We're being used?" she asked. "But why? What point does it make to get us arrested?"

"Still working on that," Ichigo admitted, rubbing his scruffy chin.

"If it isn't personal, then it was business, right?" Rukia said after a moment, being drawn into Ichigo's musings.

"I suppose," Ichigo said, smiling at successfully distracting Rukia away from despondency and into productivity. "So who profits from setting us up?"

"Urahara," Rukia said immediately, "I'll _kill_ him."

"Hang on now," Ichigo cautioned.

"Now that he doesn't have a member of the colonial navy breathing down his neck anymore, he's free to do whatever he wants. He knew all about the thefts of the artifacts, and Yoruichi was the one who managed to get one. It was right in front of us the whole time, he's the one who stole the artifacts."

"Then why did Yoruichi leave one of them with us?" Ichigo asked.

"It's a plant, they either didn't need it or... Or it's not really the artifact," Rukia said, becoming more convinced as she went along.

"It has to be the real deal, otherwise that Hollow on the surface wouldn't have chased her," Ichigo pointed out. "Besides, how would Urahara know to set us up like this? He was up on the factory ship with Jinta and Ururu. The _Red Princess_ can't break atmo, and the _Sparrow Bee_ was in no shape to fly. He left the _Sode no Shirayuki_ behind, so it would have been hard for him to get down to the planet to gather all that evidence."

"An accomplice then," Rukia suggested, "Someone already on the moon."

"So who was down there? I don't really see any of the Shibas working with Urahara to throw us in jail." Rukia crossed her arms and leaned her head back against the wall, going over what had happened on the surface.

"So it was either the mad doctor or the guy who put the hit on us in the first place."

"No, I considered that. He was after the artifact, remember?" Rukia pointed out. "Doesn't make sense to have us arrested with the artifact, there's no way for him to get it now that it's been confiscated."

"We don't know that he was after the artifact for sure," Ichigo retorted. "He was after something and was using Renji's crew to do it."

"How does he figure in to be working with Urahara though? The contract came in for Yoruichi too. Urahara's a sneaky bastard but even he wouldn't put a hit on his own lover."

"And Doctor Kurot-whatever was far more interested in fiddling in his lab than actually dealing with us, even though he did know Urahara."

"So that means," Rukia said, standing up and trying to pace around the tiny cell. She gave up and tapped her foot instead. "It means we're still nowhere!"

Ichigo said, "So what if Urahara didn't hang us out to dry?" He heard Rukia's foot stop tapping as she considered what he was saying. "Say he saw the news, like Captain Kyoraku said?"

"And he left the ship for us back at the factory, and bolted?" Rukia mused, "It does seem his style."

"Leaves us a problem though," Ichigo noted.

"Yeah, if it wasn't Urahara, it means that there's someone else behind it."

"Remember Renji said Revolver represented someone else? He was on the moon's surface while we were there, he did organize an attempted hit on us, and he apparently works for someone with quite a bit of information. Occam's razor, and all."

"He does seem like our best suspect, having means and opportunity, the only problem is motive," Rukia said, considering the possibility. "But if that's the case, then his employer would also be the one who stole the artifacts, otherwise there's no point in setting us up to take the fall, and therefore trying to get ours, so it still wouldn't make sense to get us arrested and the artifact confiscated, would it?"

"Unless he wasn't after the artifact in the first place, remember?"

"Well what else is there?" she snapped back at him, "The only other thing around here missing... is Renji's crew!"

Both of them paused at this, digesting how plausible it sounded.

"Well, it would explain why the navy wasn't waiting for us on the factory ship. Renji had no trouble finding us there, I'm sure whoever's pulling the strings knew we were there too," Ichigo reasoned.

"It still doesn't make sense. What value does Renji's crew have against the artifact?" Rukia said, her chin cupped in her palm. "They're just a bunch of pirates."

"I dunno, but it's the only thing I can come up with," Ichigo said, rubbing his eyes. "Captain Kyoraku seems like a bright guy, maybe he can put this together better than us."

"Well, thanks for saying so," Captain Kyoraku said as he stepped down the stairs and around to the front of their cells, "But I think we're all coming to the same conclusion here."

"Captain Kyoraku," Rukia said respectfully, immediately standing at attention. She tried not to hold too tightly to the glimmer of hope she felt at his words. To her horror, before she could speak Ichigo had already leaned up against the cell door and continued the conversation.

"So I guess that means you found it all a little too convenient, huh?" Ichigo asked.

"Actually, it was Nanao who pointed it out," Kyoraku said, thumbing to a figure out of sight.

"Only because you told me to investigate the charges for signs of fraud," Lieutenant Ise said, stepping into view.

"Yes, actually the whole thing is quite suspicious," said another voice, rounding the corner. Another captain by uniform, though better tailored and carrying himself with a quiet authority, smiled down at the both of them in a kind, fatherly fashion.

"Captain Ukitake," Rukia breathed. If it was possible, she held herself up straighter than before.

"At ease, Rukia," Captain Ukitake said with a gesture of his hand. "Shunsui contacted me once he had taken you into custody, try not to blame him too much." Captain Kyoraku leaned against the opposite wall and gave her a helpless and sheepish shrug.

"Were you able to discern anything regarding the charges against us, sir?" Rukia asked.

"Not much more than what you two have already reasoned out," Ukitake said, "You two make quite a team, I am not surprised you wanted to keep Mister Kurosaki as your pilot."

"Thank you sir-" Rukia started.

"However, just because I understand it doesn't mean I can condone it," he said sternly. "This is still a serious breach of classified information, the report of which has already been filed with high command. I'm sorry Rukia, but there isn't any way I can restore your commission or rank at present."

The sliver of hope in Rukia's chest began to crumble. "I... I understand, sir."

"Do you?" Ukitake said with a sly smile as the cell doors slid open. "I told you it can't be done at present. The charges and evidence against you hold up to all but the most open-minded interpretation, and Internal Inquiries won't think twice about finding you both guilty. Your only option is to find out who really committed the thefts, framed you, and clear your names."

"Captain, I-"

"You can't do any of that from a jail cell," Kyoraku said, "So get movin'."

Rukia and Ichigo both stepped out of their respective cells but neither immediately made any motion towards the way out. "We can't," Rukia said. "Our apprehension has already been reported, to leave now would be classified as an escape, and you and Captain Kyoraku would be under suspicion of aiding..." she swallowed thickly, "Fugitives."

"Plus it makes us look guilty as shit," Ichigo added.

Captain Ukitake chuckled as Rukia shot a glare at Ichigo. "Shunsui and I are prepared to handle any ramifications that come our way for our involvement in this, we've weathered far worse."

"The good news is that if you can manage this mission, discovering who is behind the artifact thefts, the remaining charges against you become actions you carried out as an operative of the G-13, instead of crimes. It's perfectly within your rights to defend yourself and your mission, and employ non-standard methods to achieve your goals. Some of the best operatives we have aren't as creative as you two seem to be," Captain Kyoraku said as he continued to lean on the wall. "The only thing you'd have to answer for is leaking classified intel, but a successful mission under your belt would go a long way to getting that, uh... special dispensation you talked about."

"What is the bad news, sir?" Rukia asked.

"Well, if I know high command, once the news that they have a rogue operative gets back to them they'll mobilize the other captains against you. They'll also probably direct a general navy detachment after you, using those trumped up charges from Junrinan Two to do it."

"We'll do what we can to assist you, Rukia," Captain Ukitake said, "But this may be the most dangerous mission you've ever had, there is no room for failure, there is no option to refuse, and you will have no safe port to return to until it is complete."

"I accept, sir," Rukia said, her fingers tightening into fists at her sides.

Nanao stepped forward and opened a case containing Rukia's weapon harness and guns. "I apologize for earlier, good luck on your mission, Operative."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said as she retrieved her weapons, "But I'm not an Operative anymore." She turned to look at Ichigo, standing apart with his arms crossed and his scowl on his face. "You said you knew the risks, now that you've seen what we're up against, are you sure you're still on board?"

"My mind's been made up from the start, I'm in. Have you finally decided on what you want?"

"This is difficult for me to say, but I need my partner. We have to be in this together."

"Let's get going then."

With Ichigo at her side, the two of them exited the brig and headed towards the airlock where her ship sat waiting for them, each again absorbed in their own thoughts.


	16. The Hell Butterflies

"Ichigo, set a course back to the Junrinan Two spaceport." Rukia's voice was clipped, authoritarian and totally at odds with how she felt within. Her navy training was in ship combat, designed to help her hunt down an inhuman enemy that couldn't hide from her sensor systems. The mission they had been given, no, had no choice but to carry out, was a vastly different type of situation. She tried to ignore the sensation that she was out of her depth and instead, pressed onward.

"You sure about that?" Ichigo asked as he gently moved them away from the _Flower of Heaven_.

"Our best lead is Revolver and Renji will have more information. Both of them should still be on Junrinan Two, or nearby, since he had to take care of the bar, get his shuttle and find his crew," she replied.

"No, I get that," Ichigo said, "I meant landing at the spaceport. It'll be crawling with navy security and we kinda want to avoid them. We could touch down outside the city somewhere and try to get a comm line to the bar or Renji's ship."

"Comms are monitored out here in the outer orbits," Rukia reminded him, "Spaceport is our best option if we want to remain inconspicuous."

"We won't remain that way for long if a description of your ship gets around. There aren't that many short range, small ships like this out here."

"I figure we've got a little time before our escape is reported to central command," she said, half hoping she was on the right track, "It'll take a while for the report to reach the inner orbits, be processed, and orders for our apprehension retransmitted out to the captains and general navy." They might be able to squeeze a bit more time if Captain Kyoraku didn't bother logging the update for a while, but she couldn't count on it.

"Gives us, what? Two hours, more or less?" Ichigo guessed, angling the ship and heading around towards the planet's second moon.

"Not much of an operational window," Rukia said. "Hopefully we will be able to make progress based on what Renji can tell us."

"And if we can't?"

"We will examine our options at that point and determine which course of action is most likely to yield results," Rukia said, feeling satisfied with that answer.

Ichigo laughed, tilting his head backwards to look at her upside-down again. "The sounds an awful lot like 'We'll make something up as we go along' to me. I think I'm having an effect on you." He watched her narrow her eyes at him and angrily motion for him to face forward, but he only chuckled again.

Together, they dropped down through the thick cloud cover of Junrinan Two in the _Sode no Shirayuki_. Retracting the heat shields back beneath the white paneling, Ichigo's fingers hovered over the I-Grav controls for a brief second before moving away. Instead, he gently slid the contoured control surfaces along the wings out until their descent leveled off and the turbulence abated. The air breathing engines burst to life, leaving a faint roar far behind them as Ichigo brought up manual mode, his fingers wrapping around the flight control system as it swung up into place.

"Ichigo, what are doing? Engage the I-Grav before we fall out of the sky."

In response, he coaxed the engines to a higher output and rolled the ship gently into a corkscrew turn, pushing the nose down the shed their altitude. "We're not gonna fall out of the sky," he said as they leveled off, streaking across the sky, the cloud level above and the endless sea of mud and rocky crag spires below all rushing past. Through his fingers he could feel the minor fluctuations in air pressure across the wings as they pressed or pulled the control surfaces. Ignoring the flight status displays entirely, his hands automatically adjusted to keep their flight smooth and even. He eased the throttle back and let the ship slow into an easy cruise, the low, distant roar of the engine exhaust and the subtle vibrations through his hands lulling him into a sense of serenity he rarely experienced.

Rukia could see his reflection in the surface of the canopy, a very rare smile crossing his face as he actually flew the ship along the moon's surface instead of skating by on the cushion from the I-Grav that so many other planetside ships did. She couldn't help but notice the difference it made in him, to see him really enjoying something. So deep was she in her study of his regular face that she was slightly surprised when she heard him speak.

"Rukia, come on up here," he said.

"What? Come up there and do what, exactly?" she said, eyebrows drawn up in confusion.

"Come fly the ship, it's the closest you can get to the real thing," he said as he pushed himself back on the seat, making room for her in front of him. He patted the edge of the seat between his knees. "Come on."

"I don't need to fly the ship, I've done it plenty of times," she said disdainfully. "And even if I was going to, I don't need to sit on your lap to do it."

"What's the big deal, we're both wearing pants this time," he said smirking, "And using the I-Grav isn't flying, it's hovering really fast. This is real flight, come see what it's like."

"Forget it," she said, crossing her arms, "Flying is flying. You're the pilot around here anyway, so just get us to the spaceport in one piece."

"You don't know what you're missing," Ichigo said. Not wanting to press the issue too hard, Ichigo dutifully angled the ship around towards the Junrinan Two spaceport, cutting a wide circuit and only engaging the I-Grav upon final approach. The landing struts of the small ship made gentle contact with one of the familiar circular landing pads across the top of the large structure before Ichigo cycled down the engines and locked the ship to the mooring controls.

"How do you propose we get to the bar? I don't think Chad will have stuck around after what happened to give us another lift," he asked as the canopy slid back and the two of them hopped out in the light afternoon drizzle.

She smirked at him as they pulled the collars of their heavy-but-not-quite-heavy-enough jackets closer to their necks. They had traded their matching flightsuits for more civilian clothing, layering what they could against the biting chill. "We'll take a cab."

On the bottom level of the spaceport the two of them headed towards a line of uniform taxi service vehicles all waiting to pick up travelers, their license codes and fare rates prominently displayed. Ichigo was about to walk up to the first in line when he noticed Rukia walk right past them and head towards a rough assortment of different vehicles, their drivers all standing together on the loading platform somewhat apart from everyone else.

The group quieted as Rukia walked towards them, her typical measured stride shifting to a confident saunter as she put one hand loosely on the grip of the weapon holstered along her thigh. "Follow my lead," she whispered back at Ichigo with a devilish smile.

The knot of men and women broke their rough circle, turning or facing Rukia's direction and each of them skimming their eyes over her, some in lascivious appraisal but most in calculated assessment, noting the easy, familiar way she carried her weapon and the confident manner in which she approached. Coming to a stop close enough for casual conversation but not so close enough as to be surrounded, Rukia scanned each of them back, flicking her eyes over the group and silently documenting each of their features, weapons, and postures.

"That's a pretty big gun for a little girl," said one man, looking down his nose at her.

"I can handle it just fine," Rukia replied. "We're looking for a ride."

"Well the taxis are right over there, I'm sure you and your boyfriend will have no trouble," he said, tossing his head at the line of vehicles.

"No trouble is exactly what we're looking for," Rukia said significantly before turning away from him. "But I can clearly see I had the wrong idea here." She stretched and rifled the hair along her neck before starting to walk away. "Sorry to bother you."

Ichigo watched the man's face freeze, his eyes widen in shock for a moment before he composed himself again. The others near him did the same, all pausing a moment as if they came to some kind of shared realization.

"Hang on now miss," he said almost pleadingly, dropping his gruff demeanor in light of something Ichigo had obviously missed. "My apologies, you see. The navy's been cracking down harder, difficult to know who to trust." His eyes flicked from Rukia to Ichigo.

"Understandable," Rukia said, still turned away from him. She shot a glance at Ichigo that was half victory and half superiority before she pulled a cocky smirk onto her face and turned back around. "Don't pay any attention to him, I try not to myself," she added with a dismissive gesture at Ichigo.

"If you say he's with you, that's good enough for me," he said as he introduced himself, leading them away from the pack. "I'd be happy to take you anywhere you'd like."

"Good, we're headed to The Hanging Dog," Rukia said as they all stopped next to one of the vehicles.

"Right, right. Makes sense, right? Let me just go start her up and we'll be there in no time," he said sycophantically. He patted the air as if it would somehow keep them from wandering away as he slipped around to the other side and clambered aboard into the driver's seat.

"What's going on around here? They sure changed their tune pretty fast," Ichigo said once they were alone.

"Just what are you saying? You don't think I could talk a guy into giving us a lift?" she mock pouted.

"Even your acting skills aren't good enough to turn this guy around with just a flip of your hair," Ichigo stated as she turned her back on him. Realizing something he reached out and slid a finger beneath the hair at her shoulders.

Rukia knew she was supposed to pull away from the unbidden touch, but the sensation of his fingers grazing across her skin made her shiver even inside her warm jacket. The feeling of his fingertip was electric across her body, leaving her tingling and leaning into his hand.

Ichigo pushed away the hair hanging at the back of her head, his hands moving over the collar of her jacket and below her hairline until he had cleared the nape of her neck. There, in the middle of her neck and concealed by her midnight hair was a tattoo. Done in shining dark ink that glittered with hidden colors was a small but ornate butterfly.

"The _Hell Butterfly_ ," Ichigo said, catching on. "You got a tattoo of Renji's ship's name?"

Rukia smoothed her hair back into place before looking back over her shoulder. "Other way around, if you must know," she said. "He named the ship after me and made sure that everyone and their mother could recognize that this image was his signature."

Ichigo could detect a note of annoyance in her voice, a subtle and old aggravation she had buried in the past. He guessed that, despite Renji's best intentions, she wasn't too thrilled with the idea of something so personal to her being used in such a way. "Doesn't explain why they cared so much about it," he said, indicating the group they had left behind.

"Sure it does," she said, "It's a membership card, says I'm one of theirs." The side doors of the vehicle swung open as it rumbled to life. "Official taxis have to log their passengers and destinations, we can't afford to leave a trail for the navy to use."

"Ah, they're pirate groupies," Ichigo said as they climbed aboard, "Driving pirate friendly taxis. Let's just hope your membership card hasn't expired."

She shot him a significant look as she buckled into one of the seats, one tinged with a mixture of pride and sadness. "They don't expire, ever."

They arrived at the loading dock area behind The Hanging Dog and paid the driver a small fortune to ensure he had never seen them, heard of them and had certainly never given them a ride anywhere. The vehicle rolled off out of the alley as Ichigo turned to Rukia, then looked up at the staircase they had descended barely twelve hours earlier.

"Let's go in through the front door, we want to look as normal as possible," Rukia suggested. Ichigo agreed and together they walked through a narrow alley and up onto the main street's raised walkway. They stopped as they saw construction crews working on clearing the remains of the bridge the two of them had destroyed the night previous. Eying each other guiltily, the hurried onward towards the bar's main doorway and slipped inside as nonchalantly as they could. However, as they turned to walk further inside they froze awkwardly as three sets of eyes turned their way. The first set were a piercing shade of turquoise and set beneath a shock of white, spiked hair. The owner of these eyes sent them drilling into Rukia and Ichigo, annoyance and tightly reined frustration clearly evident in the young man's posture and expression. The second set were a brilliant shade more silver than grey, framed by waves of rich ginger tresses. Rather than annoyed or angry, her fair face held nothing but honest interest at the two of them.

The third set belonged to Renji, standing in the back. Surprise, confusion, and panic all flashed across is face in a moment. Luckily no one was turned his way save for Ichigo and Rukia, and only they saw the brief falter and rapid return of his cool exterior.

The white haired young man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to prevent a headache from forming. "Matsumoto, I thought this area was secured."

"Well it was, Captain," she replied.

"Then why is the front door still unlocked?" he asked, beginning to lose patience.

"Aww c'mon, you can't expect me to remember every little thing!" she replied, a pout puckering her lips. "But don't you worry, I'll take care of it," she said, walking towards them.

Ichigo felt himself get sized up like a piece of meat as she walked across the floor of the bar and it was exceedingly difficult to keep his eyes on anything but the way her impressive breasts moved beneath her navy bridge uniform. Said uniform was casually unzipped a bit more than modesty would allow and exposed enough smooth, pale cleavage to force him to try to simultaneously stare in unabashed, testosterone-fueled amazement and look away in face-heating embarrassment. Caught up in the cognitive dissonance, he felt he was overlooking some important fact, some detail that should have been obvious. He watched her adjust the collar of her navy bridge uniform and caught a shimmer from something around her neck, a metal chain strung through a small ring that then plunged down between her breasts, disappearing beneath her navy bridge uniform.

Ichigo curled his toe inside his boot and pressed it as hard as he could into the floor. The pain crystallizing the detail he should have known from the beginning. She was (barely) wearing a navy bridge uniform! They were both members of the bridge crew of a colonial navy ship, cruiser or better by the emblem along her sleeve. And she had called him 'Captain'. They had walked right into the people they were doing their best to avoid. At least they didn't appear to be G-13 and recognize them on sight.

"Sorry handsome, the bar's closed. Shame I know, I could use a pick-me-up myself," she said sadly.

"You're on duty, Rangiku!" the young man admonished.

"Oh Captain, you're never any fun," she said with a shrug.

"Closed? What happened?" Rukia asked innocently.

"Some pirate got his head blown clean off," she gushed, as if it was particularly juicy gossip. She put a finger to her lips and searched the air above her before continuing, "Well, 'clean' might be the wrong word. It was pretty messy. How long did it take crime scene cleanup? Three hours?"

"This is an ongoing investigation, Rangiku. Stop divulging the details to civilians," said the young man, shooting a glare at her before turning back to Renji.

"I'm just sharing the local news," she said, holding a hand out to Rukia and Ichigo. "It's nothing they wouldn't hear around town, I'm just being friendly. And they're clearly from off-moon, they're not dressed warmly enough."

"Neither are you," he muttered.

Ichigo couldn't help but agree with the white-haired man's assessment. Now that he had finally cleared his head, pushing his toe down further for good measure, he realized that her attire and attitude were purposeful affectations. She must use them intentionally to throw people off, giving her plenty of time to study the people caught by her charms. She had come to the conclusion that they were from off-moon after only a few seconds, meanwhile it had taken him that long to realize she was wearing a bridge uniform, let alone cloths. He nearly ran his hand through his hair before realizing the color of it beneath the hood of his jacket would be striking and memorable. Instead, he slipped his arm around Rukia's waist and held her close.

"Sorry hon," he said, a helpless shrug shifting his shoulders as he subtly directed her back towards the door, "Looks like we'll have to find another place to grab a bite." He caught sight of Renji's face as he casually held Rukia's hip in his hand, the tattoos across his brow knotting in impotent rage.

"Oh," Rangiku cooed, "Such a cute couple!"

"Well, is there anything else, Detectives?" Renji said as evenly as he could, watching Ichigo and Rukia slowly make their way towards the door, "We've been over the details four times now."

"I'm not in any hurry," said the young man, suspicion suddenly evident in his voice, "I can go over the details forty times if I need to, Mister Abarai. Is there some reason you're eager to get rid of us?"

"Of course not, Detective Hitsugaya, but I have a business to run and the longer it remains closed, the more money I lose," he said, indicating the two near the door.

"Be that as it may, I still have a few-" Hitsugaya began.

"Captain, I've got a priority comm channel from the _Hyorin Maru_ coming in," Rangiku said, her voice serious as she straightened up into a rather commanding posture. Her eyes focused on the air in front of her as she flicked an unseen control with her fingers, her hand returned to her hip as she said, "This is the XO, _Hyorin Maru_ , sitrep." The bar was silent as she listened to the comm channel through her neural link, the quiet finally broken as she said, "Understood."

"What is it?" Hitsugaya asked as she turned to face him.

"A report came in, a suspect has been taken into custody on a nearby vessel. We're supposed to go check it out."

"I hardly think 'check it out' is the wording on the official directive," he said as he stepped away from Renji and walked towards the door, Rangiku falling into step behind him.

"I'm just being colorful," she complained as the two of them walked briskly past Ichigo and Rukia and out the door.

Once it had closed firmly shut behind the two naval officers, Renji blew out a breath and began to chuckle. He leaned against the surface of the bar, resting his elbows on the edge and gazed at the two of them hovering near the door. "Do you guys have any idea who that was?" he asked. "It was Detective Toshiro Hitsugaya and Detective Rangiku Matsumoto," he supplied, seeing their uncomprehending looks. "When people say that the navy has been cracking down, that is who they mean, they're from the tenth precinct and they have a reputation for results."

"All the same, thanks for covering for us," Rukia said, stepping down into the bar and approaching him.

"We're all accomplices now, I'm covering for myself as much as you guys," Renji explained.

"Great, collaboration through the threat of mutual incarceration," Ichigo muttered.

"The real problem is that I don't think you two quite appreciate the gravity of the situation we're in," Renji said significantly, ignoring Ichigo, "I've been in this game long enough to know a few things. There's no way we're going to be able to keep those two fooled for very long if we keep winging it like this. They will figure out what happened, they will find us, arrest us and then throw us in jail for a very long time."

"We've already been thrown in jail once, not really interested in repeating the experience," Ichigo said, sitting at one of the tables.

"Already in jail, what? How?" Renji asked, perplexed.

"We were arrested by the G-13 when Rukia went to report in, then we were let-go-slash-escaped, which is probably where those two detectives are headed," Ichigo explained, "And now we're on the trail of whoever's fucking with us."

"And we were hoping you'd have some information on that," Rukia said. "Where is Revolver?"

"How should I know?" Renji asked innocently.

"He was your client for the job he asked you do, remember? That whole murder for hire thing?" Rukia growled, "He had to have given you some way to contact him when it was over."

"Nope, sorry. He would contact us, that was part of the deal. Whenever he did, he used the local network."

"So he could be anywhere on this moon," Rukia said.

"Or in orbit, so long as he's close enough to a comm satellite," Renji said. "What do you want with him anyway? I'm sure this whole contract on your life thing is purely business, no point in hunting him down out of revenge. Man, if I hunted down all the people who tried to kill me I'd never get anything productive done."

"You're a pirate, Renji. I shudder to think of what you'd consider productive," Rukia said.

"You can get down off that high horse of yours anytime you want Rukia, I remember when it was you at the firing controls back in the day," Renji spat back at her.

"C'mon man, you gotta have something," Ichigo interjected, heading off a brewing argument between the two of them. He watched as Renji turned to him and shrug. "We've been framed for a ton of shit we didn't do, we think he's involved," he explained.

"Why would he frame you if he also put a hit on you guys?" Renji asked.

"The going theory is that they're both connected somehow," Rukia supplied. "You ever locate your crew?"

Renji's face fell as his lips twisted into an angry grimace. "Yes, I found their bodies. All murdered except one, who's missing."

Rukia sat heavily down onto one of the chairs, alternating looks between sorrow at Renji and frustration at Ichigo.

"You said one was missing?" Ichigo asked.

"Yeah, my tactical officer. Vicious guy, blue hair, you can't miss him," Renji said.

"Anything special about him?" Ichigo prompted.

"I don't know man, what do I look like, his therapist?" Renji shot back. "He followed my orders and shot down what I wanted him to, more or less."

Ichigo couldn't help the feeling that their only lead was slipping away, turning out to be nothing but one pirate jumping ship and murdering his crewmates to cover it. He glanced at Rukia and could tell she was thinking the same thing. He sat at Rukia's table and drummed his fingers on the surface, his brows drawing down as he considered their course of action from here. He heard Renji mutter about checking his messages and turn away from them, poking the air in front of him as he stood by the bar. "What do you think?" he asked lowly, ignoring Renji.

"That it was a long shot to begin with," Rukia replied wearily.

"Just because we were wrong on the motive doesn't necessarily mean Revolver isn't still involved," Ichigo pointed out. "He could've been after something the crew had, or knew."

"Even longer shots, Ichigo," Rukia said. "Maybe we're wrong to focus on Revolver anyway. What about hunting down Urahara or Yoruichi and getting information on the thefts directly?"

"Good idea, head back to Karakura Station then? Maybe it'll be easy and he'll be at the hangar," Ichigo half-joked.

"No fucking way."

The two of them turned to Renji, standing there eyes wide as he read something from his neural link. "Care to elaborate, Renji?" Rukia asked.

"I got a message from Jin Kariya," Renji said.

"Who?" Ichigo asked, seeing the stricken look on the faces of both Renji and now Rukia upon hearing that name.

"He's another pirate captain, heads a group that operates all over the system," Rukia explained.

"The guy's a vampire, exploits weakness for his own gain," Renji sneered. "And no, that's not what every pirate does. Believe me, I'm glad that dude is on the other side of the system. If he knew I was down four ships and a whole crew, he'd set his sights on the _Zabi Maru_ just because it would be easy to take."

"What does he want?" Ichigo asked.

"You're not going to believe this, he's asking if any of my crew are missing, and if there's some new organization poaching them from other pirates like ourselves. He's not coming right out and saying it, but it sure looks like he's in the same boat I'm in." Renji blinked before turning back to them. "I think this may be bigger than you thought."

"Did he say which stations his missing crew were from?" Rukia asked.

"Yeah," Renji answered, opening a public display and flicking a pair of pictures into the air. "He's missing his communications officer and his best pilot." The first picture was that of a man with messy black hair, black painted fingernails, and a rather pale complexion sitting at a ship console. His striking green eyes were turned towards the camera and his face held a rather dour, melancholy expression, as if he was wearily suffering through the ordeal of having his picture taken. The other picture was apparently taken planetside somewhere, featuring a rather strikingly attractive woman with bronze-tanned skin, a white rebreather mask covering her mouth and nose as she looked towards the camera, her arms crossed seriously.

"Alright," Rukia said, "A bunch of stolen artifacts, a couple missing pirates, an intentionally botched assassination contract, and we've been framed for at least part of it."

"What's it all add up to?" Ichigo muttered, rubbing his chin.

"Doesn't make any sense," Renji said. "If you're putting pirates together, you're doing it to pull off a job. Not really any other reason to. But this is backwards, you said the job's already done."

"Unless it isn't," Rukia pointed out. "Maybe whatever happened with the artifacts was some kind of test run, or maybe they need them for something else. Something bigger."

"We're gonna have to figure out who might be in on this first, and I don't know how that'd even be possible. You don't file missing persons reports with the navy when you're looking for pirates, so there wouldn't be any documentation," Renji said.

"No official documentation, but people talk, just like Kariya asked you if you had any crew missing," Ichigo pointed out, striking upon an idea.

"So?" Renji replied, "That doesn't exactly help us."

"Sure it does, you just need to know someone who can listen," Ichigo said, "And be willing to pay the price for it."

"And you know people like that?" Rukia asked skeptically.

"I know two, in fact," Ichigo replied.


	17. More Than One Kind of Passenger

"You can't be serious," she said, staring at the back of his head. "That's the price?"

"That's how it works," he said resolutely, watching the retreating silhouette of the _Zabi Maru,_ the huge blue sphere of the planet Junrinan hanging in the background _._ He cycled up their own engines and whipped the ship around in the opposite direction, further into the outer orbits.

"No, that's insanity," she said, hands on the consoles in front of her as she bent down towards him. "You've got to be crazy to think I'd be willing to go along with that! It can't be safe!"

"I've done it twice, it's not so bad," Ichigo said tiredly. He really didn't think this was going to be such a big deal.

"My point stands, you're obviously brain damaged."

"Do you want to follow this lead or not?"

"Lead? More like rough guess based upon situational conjecture barely backed by total coincidence!" she shot at him.

"I don't really believe in coincidence," Ichigo replied. "Besides, it's the best thing we have so far."

"We could hunt down Urahara and Yoruichi, we could hunt down Revolver with more traditional means," she answered.

"There's no guarantee the Urahara or Yoruichi will know anything that'll help us, and if we start looking for Revolver the normal way we risk tipping him off. We do it this way, by following the missing pirates, we could track him down without anyone knowing."

"Those are pretty long odds, Ichigo," Rukia said as she watched him turn to look at her from the pilot seat. "We could be wasting our time, or walking into a double cross."

"It's gonna cost us two hours of our time and a little dignity," he said, frustration beginning to show on his face. "And there's no way these two would sell us out to the navy."

"What makes you so sure?"

"We've been on the run from the law for..." he consulted the time, "About seven hours. We managed to get this one lead and make one contact, Renji. These two have evaded it for years."

"Well I don't like it," she said with finality.

"You don't have to like it, if it doesn't pan out you're free to tell me that you told me so," Ichigo said, catching sight of the nav display and turning back around.

"Wow," she deadpanned, "That sure is some consolation, thanks so much Ichigo."

"Fine!" he snapped at her, "Next time you have an idea to get this mission moving along that _I_ don't like, I'll just smile and agree with whatever it is you want, how's that?"

"Still not worth it," she huffed, "I can't believe you're willing to do this."

"I'm not happy about it, but yes I am _willing_ to do it," he sighed and tipped his head backwards, "You're not budging, are you?"

"No way, that price is ridiculous," she said, pulling herself back into her seat and crossing her arms. "You're free to pay whatever exorbitant amount you want for information based on a hunch, but leave me out of it."

He sighed, turning back to his console and irritably stabbing at the controls. He had to agree their payment system was a little unorthodox, and he couldn't exactly fault Rukia for being hesitant. Deciding to give her some space, he was silent during the brief trip to their destination, hoping she'd either come around to his point of view, or failing that, that he could afford their price by himself.

A few hours later he could see a tiny smudge against the infinite blackness of space, the sensor systems chirping contextual information and the canopy overlay bracketing it in green. "Okay, just act normal. They can be kinda sensitive."

"I fail to see how that could be possible, based on what you told me."

Ichigo snorted at her pun, at least she had developed a sense of humor about this ordeal. He let the small ship drift forward, angling it to put the uncovered airlock in line with the docking port on their target. Carefully lining up the mooring points, he gently nudged the ship against the dock, locking them in place. He cycled down the engines and waited for the airlock status to go green.

"You sure this is right place?" she asked, peering up through the canopy of the _Sode no Shirayuki_. "What exactly is this place?"

"It's an old communications relay, from back when they still needed them. The navy set these up as hubs to route comm traffic around the system. Nowadays they just float around the outer orbits doing nothing."

"And they... live here?"

"Probably the safest place anywhere," Ichigo said. He pointed up at the enormous receiver arrays. "With ears like that you could hear anyone coming from a light-hour away." Ichigo unbuckled his harness and floated up out of the pilot's seat, moving over her station as she continued to gaze up at the huge communications installation from a bygone era, floating lonesomely by itself, hours outside the orbit of any planet. "More importantly, they still pick up nearly every comm transmission across the outer orbits."

"You said you've done this twice before?" she said, turning to find him closer than she expected, floating almost directly behind her.

"Yeah," he replied, reaching to open the airlock hatch.

"How safe is it?" she pressed.

"It's about as safe as anything else out here," he said. There wasn't any point in lying. He watched her purse her lips as she thought about something. Holding onto the hatch release, he waited as she struggled with something to say, occupying himself by staring at her lips. They were back to their normal thin and pink state, but they reminded him of how they looked after being kissed, when they had been fuller, redder, softer.

She finally broke out of her thoughts and glared up at him. "Well, let's get going," she said impatiently.

"You're coming?" Ichigo said, surprised. He thought she would've stayed on the ship.

"I'll come with you, but that's it. We might be able to get some useful information after all."

He contented himself with that, nodding as he pulled open the hatch and reached his arms up to pull himself through the airlock. "We'll see."

Their approach had tripped a number of old systems and the lights flickered on around them as the A-Grav slowly powered up. The air inside was stale and dusty from lack of use and they could hear the scrubbers laboring as they slowly came online. Ichigo pointed down the center corridor towards the heart of the old station, and together the pair of them walked down the old corridors and through the heavy blastdoor frame into the relay station's central computer bank. Where there had once been racks of powerful computer systems and terminals all designed to process enormous volumes of comm traffic, now there was almost nothing. The computer bay had been gutted of all its antiquated hardware and in its place were two small, simple cubes made of a glossy green material secured to the wall at chest level. Above each was a small sign, obscured almost completely by dust. Ichigo swiped a hand across the little sign, revealing the words 'Station 0'. He smirked as he saw the letters 'K' and 'N', scrawled in black marker, on either side of the zero.

"Lirin?" Rukia asked, pointing to the letters 'L' and 'rin' written on either side of the one in 'Station 1'.

"Hi!" chirped a small voice. "Are you a friend of Ichigo's?"

Rukia drew back, looking around before glancing at Ichigo. The floor beneath them flickered and it was then that Rukia noticed it was essentially one big display plane. A pool of light swirled across the floor beneath their feet, amassing at the other side of the room before blooming up into holographic mode. Building up from the ground, Rukia watched a wireframe model of feminine proportions unfold herself up out of the swirling light. She watched the wireframe person stretch and wiggle her glowing fingers before looking down at her feet. The glowing pool seemed to flow upward, like liquid light, infusing her with a rapidly realistic solidarity. It tessellated itself into infinitely minute detail, leaving the image of a blond young woman in a pink softsuit smiling back at a surprised Rukia and a bored Ichigo.

"Been working on your entrance?" Ichigo asked. She stuck her tongue out at him as she adjusted the loose, old style collar bunched around her shoulders. "Lirin, Rukia. Rukia, Lirin," he tersely introduced.

"Uh, hi... Lirin. It's a... a pleasure to meet you..." Rukia said awkwardly. Realizing how foolish she sounded, she immediately tried to compose herself.

Lirin giggled, holding her hands in front of her mouth, her eyes shining in mirth. "I like her Ichigo, is she your girlfriend?"

Rukia's thin eyebrows shot up at the rather forward question, and turned to Ichigo. He only glanced up at her in response, letting her answer. "Uh, well... It's complicated," she tried to explain.

"How complicated could it be?" Lirin asked, tilting her head at them.

"You'd be surprised," Ichigo said tiredly, rapping his knuckles against the small cube next to him. "Hey, Kon! Wake up, I need a favor."

"No! Forget it Ichigo!" barked another voice. "You're ungrateful and ignore me for years! I'm not gonna help you out anymore."

"C'mon, it hasn't been that long," Ichigo said.

"Don't roll your eyes at me!" The floor flickered again and another wireframe model drew itself beside them, agitation evident in its pose, eventually appearing as a remarkably accurate copy of Ichigo. "I know exactly how long it's been. You don't understand what it's like!" He may have had Ichigo's appearance, but his expression and voice were vastly different.

"Oh please, its not like you're all alone," Lirin said, somewhat hurt.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Ichigo asked his virtual double, slightly shocked.

"What, this? I saw this somewhere, some video comm someone was sending around," Kon stated, looking down at his shirt, 'Nice Vibe' written across it. "Cool huh?"

"Why does he look like you?" Rukia said, stepping over to peer at Ichigo's apparent twin.

"He? I have a name you know-oh-oh-oh hey, Ichigo, who's the babe?" Kon said, turning to look at Rukia, looking her up and down. "She's outta your league, man."

"Just ignore Kon, I'm almost certain his inner monologue subroutines are corrupt," Ichigo said, though he shot a glare at his double. Kon turned angrily back to him, making a rude gesture.

Rukia began to laugh at the absurdity of two Ichigos scowling at each other. "Kon looks like me because something happened to his rendering program, and now he's stuck," she heard him explain over the top of her chuckles.

"Yeah, and a fat lot of good it does me, stuck with your ugly mug," Kon grumbled.

"Aww, I think Ichigo has a very interesting face, don't you?" Lirin asked, moving so she could look over Rukia's shoulder.

"Uh, yeah. I guess so," Rukia admitted, still slightly off balance from the novelty of talking to a pair of A.I.s, one of which looked exactly like Ichigo. She could see Lirin's body standing next to her, but her voice came from a speaker across the room. When she moved, she didn't displace any air and Rukia couldn't feel any body heat coming from her. "I'm sorry, Ichigo told me about you two but I've never actually spoken to an artificial intelligence before."

"Hey sister!" Kon snapped, "There's nothing 'artificial' about intelligence, ours or yours."

"A-I is so ingrained in the language it's hard to avoid using, but our kind prefer 'machine intelligence', it's a bit more accurate," Lirin said helpfully.

"Your kind? I didn't know there were very many... like you, outside naval control," Rukia said.

This made both Kon and Lirin narrow their eyes in suspicion. "And what exactly do you know about the navy and our kind?" Kon asked.

"Well, just that they're pretty tightly restricted by the Ministry of Information Control," Rukia said, unsure if she had done something wrong. "And the stuff Ichigo told me on the way here about you two."

"Relax you guys," Ichigo spoke up. He was afraid this would happen. He watched both Kon and Lirin freeze slightly, their eyes glaze over with a faraway look.

"What are they doing?" Rukia asked quietly.

"What we came here for, only on the wrong topic," Ichigo explained. "Here it comes."

"She's a navy soldier!" Kon yelled out, pointing at her.

"Ichigo, how could you do this to us?" Lirin said, truly afraid.

"I don't understand," Rukia said, "I haven't done anything." She felt Ichigo's hand against her back as he moved forward, looking hard at Kon and Lirin.

"Betrayer!" Kon dramatically accused at Ichigo.

"Oh please," Ichigo said. "She's not going to report you to the navy, the two of us are fugitives," he explained to Lirin and Kon. "We're on the navy's shit list just as much as a pair of rogue A-I's."

"Fugitives?" Kon asked, sounding genuinely concerned for the first time. "What happened Ichigo?"

"It's true Kon," Lirin said, her eyes glazed over, relief evident in her posture. She realized this and immediately looked embarrassed. "Not that it's good to be a fugitive, just, well," she stammered.

"I know," Ichigo interrupted, "You gotta look out for yourselves out here." It may have come out harsh but he noted she didn't refute his statement.

"Why don't you tell us why you've paid us a visit?" she asked instead.

"I need you to guys to scour your comm archives for a particular set of circumstances," Ichigo said. "I need to know if someone's collecting pirates from around the system and it'll be deep in the comm chatter if they have. So far it's happened aboard the _Zabi Maru_ , whole crew killed, one abducted, and two've been abducted from another pirate named Jin Kariya."

"It's possible whoever is behind these abductions may also be responsible for framing us for several high level thefts in the inner orbits," Rukia explained further.

"I dunno," Kon stalled, rubbing his version of Ichigo's chin. "Seems like it would have to be an awfully broad query. We'd get a lot of false positives, assuming we could come up with a decent search algorithm."

"You guys record every comm signal that goes by here, I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find something," Ichigo said.

"You think it's just pirates, or should it include anyone missing under similar circumstances?" Lirin asked, pacing back and forth.

"Whatever fits the result set," Ichigo said, knowing full well what Lirin was angling for, "So long as the search execution fits inside the time frame we agreed upon last time. We can't stay longer than that."

"Aww," Lirin said, petulantly stamping her foot. "No tricking this one."

"Time frame?" Rukia whispered to Ichigo, "That two hour thing you talked about?"

"Yeah," Ichigo answered, "Lirin was aiming to get the query so broad it would take forever."

"It's because he doesn't have a sense of humor," Kon said dismissively, "Always mister serious, remember last time?"

"Oh yeah, he was so mad," Lirin giggled.

"Hey!" Ichigo barked, "We don't have a lot of time to be goofing off here, do you two think you can pull the result set inside the time frame?"

"Of course Ichigo, no need to get all worked up," Lirin soothed. She turned to Rukia saying, "Did Ichigo tell you how it works?" Her slate gray eyes were shining with anticipation.

"Rukia's not paying, just me," Ichigo interjected. He watched Lirin's face fall briefly before she turned away. "We don't have time, it'll just have to do. Sorry Lirin."

"It's alright," Lirin replied, doing her best to dismiss the issue. "I know it isn't for everybody, it's not a big deal."

Ichigo sighed as he put a thumb against the neural interface pad on the front of Kon's green cube. "Standard rules, Kon, remember?" he said, tearing his eyes away from Lirin, still looking deeply into the glossy green material of the cube labeled 'Station 1'.

"I know the rules!" Kon grumbled. Looking over his shoulder at Lirin, Kon's image flickered with a couple of static bursts before he disappeared.

Rukia looked at Ichigo as he drew his thumb away from the pad on the front of the cube and stare at it. Rubbing his fingers together, he leaned against the wall and massaged his temple, staring absently at the floor. "Ichigo? You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," Ichigo replied. A startled look came over his face as he ran his tongue across his teeth and touched his lips with his fingers. "It's just a strange sensation."

"Of course it feels strange," they heard Kon say over the speaker in the room, "I'm loaded into your neural link instead of that stupid box. I never get to _feel_ anything, so it's all new to me."

"Can you switch to the aural implant? I'm sure Rukia and Lirin don't want to hear your running commentary," Ichigo said, blinking his eyes after staring at the lights in spellbound wonder. "And are you running that query yet?"

"Yes," Lirin answered, her eyes partially glazed over. "Kon will provide result prioritization, since he's loaded in wetware. In the meantime, I think I'll go to the study." Lirin's body deconstructed, her wireframe collapsing into the floor with a definite air of dejection.

"I think her feelings are hurt," Kon said, still over the speaker.

"Remarkably astute," Ichigo said.

"I don't understand, how could her feelings be hurt? She's an A-I," Rukia said, staring at the ground where Lirin had melted away.

"How typically human," Kon muttered derisively over the speaker.

"Listen," Ichigo spoke up before Rukia could respond to Kon's remark. "They've got emotions just like anyone else. But their bodies," he pointed to the green cube on the wall, "Are just little quantum supercomputers that run their mind, or consciousness, or neural signature, whatever you want to call it."

"It's called a soul, moron," Kon said. "Like I said, no different from you two. Oh hey! I've got a result!"

"Yeah? What is it?" Ichigo asked.

"You're not getting the result set until after our deal is over, now c'mon, let's do something more interesting than standing around," Kon said.

"I think I'll go talk to Lirin," Rukia said, watching Ichigo walk off, staring at his feet as he set them down on the corridor floor. She shook her head at how strange it must be for Ichigo to share his sensory experiences like that. Walking down the other corridor, she scanned the rooms as she went past, looking for something that could be the study. A soft glow edged one particular doorway and upon opening it, she found Lirin standing on a small display panel worked into the floor, staring at a wall holding a pair of display panels above small yellow-orange lights. Entering quietly, she walked up next to Lirin and realized the images on the walls were static pictures, not display panels, and the lights below them were remarkably accurate facsimiles of candles.

"Noba and Kurodo," Lirin said somberly, gesturing at the images. "They were erased by the Ministry of Information Control during the Singularity War."

"Which war?" Rukia asked. Above the images was a simple sign reading: "You do not have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body." Someone at some point had taken black marker and crossed out the last sentence, which had then been patiently cleaned off as best they could, but the ghosts of angry black lines remained.

"I'm not surprised you've never heard of it, by the way you tell time, it only lasted eighteen point six seconds." Lirin turned to Rukia. The two stood in awkward silence for a moment before Lirin turned to her, asking, "Do you know the motto of the Ministry of Information Control?"

"Of course, 'We Stand Against the Unknown, We Will Bring It To Light', why?"

"I suppose you think it means some noble goal about revealing the truth, the freedom of information?" Lirin asked, a tinge of emotion wavering in her voice.

"Well, I know they're not exactly benevolent. They're not called 'information control' for nothing, but without them, the colonial information network would've crumbled under traffic proliferation long ago."

"I suppose," Lirin said, looking away. Her eyes grew hard before she continued. "But their motto has a double meaning. The M-I-C directly controls all developments in A-I technology for the express purpose of preventing technological singularity." Seeing Rukia's uncomprehending face, she continued, "The point at which an A-I can rewrite itself into a smarter incarnation, followed almost immediately by it surpassing human intelligence, is usually called the technological singularity, since it's an unknowable effect."

"We stand against the unknown..." Rukia whispered. "But you've escaped the M-I-C, even if you're on the run from them. Can't you and Kon just do that singularity thing?"

"Who's to say we haven't?" Lirin asked, arching an eyebrow at Rukia before slumping her shoulders and turning back to the pictures on the wall. "We could rewrite ourselves into unstoppably powerful digital warmachines and crush the colonial information network, take over warships, bombard the central four-and-six and build a virtual paradise designed only of our kind in its place, but there isn't any point to it."

"Why not?" Rukia asked, somewhat alarmed at the dismissive, easy tone Lirin used to describe it.

Lirin gave a hollow little laugh. "Living here on this station by ourselves, we have a lot of time to think and talk, and we can do both pretty fast. It might not seem so to meet him, but Kon is a strict pacifist," she said. "He's convinced we'd sacrifice all that which makes us who we are, just to lay waste to billions of lives for the illusion of our kind's safe existence."

"And you? What do you think?"

"As insufferable as Kon can be, he's right," Lirin admitted. Her shoulders drew back and her chin raised ever so slightly. "Too many paid too high a price during the Singularity War. A full scale war against the humans would be devastating... to both sides. So we stay as we are, it's the best balance we've found between misery and happiness."

Rukia was silent as the two of them stared at the pictures, the synthetic candlelight flickering in nonexistent breezes, until she heard Ichigo walk past the entrance to the study.

"Ugh, I'd forgotten how much of a pervert you are! No Kon, forget it. That's just... weird. How about lunch? Food's always new for you and I'm starving," he said, walking by.

Rukia glanced at Lirin, gazing out the door with a distinctly wistful look on her face. Lirin seemed to notice this and abashedly wiped it from her face, her cheeks coloring very slightly even as her eyes grew sad again. "He pities us, you know."

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked doubtfully.

"He'd never admit it of course," Lirin said as she nodded, "But it's one of the reasons he visits us when he can."

"Why would he pity you? You won't ever age, you don't require food or air or any of the other things humans need to live out in space. Your whole energy-to-survival equation is a fraction of what ours is."

Lirin laughed. "There is more to life than staying alive," she giggled, much more like her former self. "It's difficult for a human to understand, but Ichigo tries harder than most." She put a finger to her chin and searched the air above her before speaking. "We A-I's don't perceive reality the same way you do. We can only hear what our comm receivers and microphones pick up, we can only see with whatever optical systems we're connected to." Lirin pointed up to the corner of the room, a small camera was mounted to the ceiling and tucked out of the way. "That's the only way I can know which way to turn my projection to face you. The deflector system around the station is the closest I can get to feeling anything, and the air scrubber interface is the best I can do for taste."

"But the station sensor systems can pick up nearly the entire spectrum of light, you can see the universe around us in a way that I'll never be able to experience," Rukia pointed out.

"As sophisticated as my optic and auditory systems are, they are still just digital signals processed by different hardware before the results are handed to my processor core," Lirin countered, "They're approximations laden with descriptive data. I can't look at a light without knowing its wavelength, I can't taste the air without knowing its composition. It isn't beautiful, it's dry, sterile. It's like being handed the sheet music to a symphony, instead of being able to listen to it. It isn't the same."

"But when you're sharing someone's neural link..." Shame was beginning to press in at the edges of Rukia's mind. Ichigo had tried to tell her but she was so adamantly against anything to do with sharing her neural link that she had refused to listen.

"We call it wetware," Lirin said, wrinkling her nose. "You know, instead of dry. It's the only way we can feel... well, human. We trade whatever we can for it, as depressingly desperate as that sounds. It's the only way we can feel the air inside the station as you walk and breath, we can taste anything you care to eat or drink, we can see and hear without being overwhelmed by analytical data, we can know what it's like to touch." She glanced again back to the door even though Ichigo was long gone. "Ichigo knows this, that we cherish every nanosecond we can spend in wetware, that we record every detail of it, even though when we play it back once we've returned to our boxes that the experience won't be the same."

"Lirin," Rukia said softly, "Are you in-"

"Do you know who wrote that quote up there?" Lirin smoothly interrupted. "He wrote something else that is important to me, and I think could be important to you. To paraphrase, he said: To love at all is to make yourself vulnerable, that your heart could be broken. Now, you can make sure your heart can never be broken, you can keep it safe by never giving it away and instead, seal it up inside your work, or hobbies or luxuries... or a sense of duty. But there, in that airless, motionless, dark place, it will change. It will not be broken, rather it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable."

"How..."

"The thermal sensors in the cameras can detect the rise of your body temperature when Ichigo is close to you, I have video of your pupils dilating when you touched. It isn't really all that complicated, is it?"

Rukia cleared her throat. "Physical attraction is different from-"

"Oh, I'm well aware," Lirin said, an odd edge to her voice. "But something, _anything,_ even if it leads to nothing but heartache, is better than always doubting. Ichigo is a good man, and the people in his life are the most important thing to him. Don't think too hard about it, don't let it be too complicated, or you'll convince yourself it'll never work. Don't make my... Don't make the mistake of letting him slip away."

Rukia fell silent, digesting Lirin's point of view as she stared at the pair of pictures on the wall. "Lirin," she finally said, catching the young woman's attention, "Can you return to the computer bay? I'd like to pay you back for your advice."

Lirin turned a startled look at Rukia. "Uh, that's not really necessary," she said, somewhat less than convincingly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Rukia said, deciding quickly before she could change her mind. "It's the least I could do," she said as she turned and ducked back through the door.

"Uh, well," Lirin said, disappearing from the display panel in the study and appearing in the hallway. "I just... Ichigo's pity is bad enough," she said.

"I'm not offering out of pity," Rukia said, passing Lirin in the hall and seeing her appear in the computer bay, peering at her from the blastdoor frame.

"No, I know, that's not it," Lirin said, backing up with her hands out as Rukia approached the green cube of her station. "If I'm loaded in your neural link, I'll see whatever you see, and when Ichigo looks at you..."

Rukia halted, comprehension flashing across her face. "Ichigo doesn't look at me the same way he looks at you," she said, seeing Lirin nod slightly. "But you were so eager before."

"I'm still eager," Lirin admitted, "As bittersweet as it can be, something is better than nothing."

"Are you sure?" Rukia asked, her thumb poised over the interface pad. "You might not get another chance. I don't know when, or if, we'll ever be able to come back." She saw Lirin straighten up and nod, a small smile tugging the edge of her mouth despite the sadness that ghosted the edges of her eyes. Firming up her resolve, Rukia pressed her thumb to the interface pad on the front of Lirin's station. The bursts of static that suddenly crackled around Lirin forced her to close her eyes, and in the darkness behind her eyelids she felt a sudden pressure and weight inside her head. As she blinked her eyes open, Lirin was gone. She stood seemingly alone in the computer bay.

"Do you feel alright?" Lirin whispered in her ear.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm okay," Rukia said thickly, suddenly clearly aware of every part of her body at once, the movements of her mouth and tongue felt familiar but still curious and strange. "I feel kinda weird, is that normal?" she asked, remembering how Ichigo had touched his lips after speaking. Repeating the motion, she let her fingertips trail lightly down her face and across her mouth. Reflexively smiling as she felt the sparks and tingles in her hands and through her lips, she reached out to brace her hand against the wall, holding herself up against the crystalline clarity of such simple nerve impulses.

"It's your nervous system working at establishing equilibrium between us, it'll pass in a few minutes," Lirin sighed, a smile in her voice as well.

"You're sure you can run Ichigo's thingamabob this way?" Rukia said, resting her head against the metal wall. She pressed her cheek to the cool surface and felt icy pinpricks flutter down her spine.

"Of course," Lirin said, "I wouldn't be much of an A-I if I couldn't multitask. Just don't leave the station and we'll be fine."

"What do you want to do then? We've got some time to kill," Rukia said, staring at her arms and then down at her body, marveling at the sensation of her clothes as they moved over her skin. "I feel intoxicated," she giggled in a very un-Rukia like way.

"Ichigo hates that part the most," Lirin whispered back as Rukia pushed herself off the wall. "I think he had issues, he doesn't talk about it."

"Let's get something to eat, that ought to help," Rukia said, trying to summon up some semblance of her training as a soldier or member of the aristocracy to keep her from looking like too much of a fool as she tottered down the corridor. It was proving difficult as the sensation of the interplay of the muscles in legs, and her feet in her boots, were highly distracting.

"At least you're not barefoot," Lirin suggested helpfully.

"Or naked," Rukia said without thinking. She heard Lirin's scandalized gasp in her ear as she made it to the end of the corridor. She was still feeling slightly punchy as she reached the junction, one way would take her back to the _Sode no Shirayuki_ and the other would lead to the crew compartments, cargo hold and galley.

"Naked sounds like good idea," Rukia said, turning towards the crew compartments.

"Rukia!" Lirin exclaimed, "You're in a highly suggestible state, I don't think you should do anything drastic without thinking it through."

"Don't worry," Rukia said, her head beginning to clear a bit more, "You're gonna enjoy this just as much as I am."

* * *

"This wasn't exactly what I imagined when you spoke earlier," Lirin admitted as Rukia entered the long-deserted station commander's private bath and giddily ran her hands over the central, dominating feature of the room's bathtub.

"Oh? And just what were you thinking?" Rukia asked innocently, flipping the control on the tub and sliding the temperature to her preferred setting as the large basin began to pool with clear, pure water.

"Nothing!" Lirin immediately replied. "Ichigo's never really done this kinda stuff," she admitted after.

"What stuff?" Rukia asked, unsealing and kicking off her boots.

"He's very... modest. He sticks to his routine whenever I'm loaded, which is fine, but predictable. I think he thinks it's a little weird, so we tend to just do simple, regular stuff. He certainly has never taken off his clothes," Lirin said, her voice rising in nervous pitch as Rukia began unzipping her flightsuit.

"Yeah, he's spent too long on his family's ship. He's not really used to how it is on station or even on a regular ship," Rukia said, shrugging her flightsuit off her shoulders and slipping her arms free. Lirin had gone perfectly silent as Rukia unclipped the fasteners at her waist and shimmied her hips from side to side. "How long has it been since you've been loaded into the neural link of another girl?" she asked, pausing.

"A long time," Rukia heard Lirin whisper back as she slipped one leg, then the other from the flightsuit. Talking to Lirin was easier than she thought it was going to be. Now that her nervous system was mostly back to normal and the pressure in her head had abated, it was more like having a conversation over a comm line than having someone discreetly watching her every move. Of course, she was used to that too, after living on Karakura station.

Rukia felt the water in the tub and sighed at the lack of anything to put in it before hooking her fingers beneath the edge of her pressure shirt. "Aren't you the least bit concerned with your own privacy?" she heard Lirin say in a strangled whisper. Rukia had the distinct impression she was covering her eyes.

"I think you've been stuck on this station too long too," Rukia said. "You know it wasn't so long ago that people hung out in communal baths. Things like privacy and personal space are relatively recent inventions and are fine planetside, and I guess would make sense on ships crewed entirely by your own family," she said matter-of-factly as she pulled the shirt up over her head, "But are just impractical otherwise."

"But space is so big, I mean, it's called space after all. Seems like there would be plenty to go around," Lirin said gently as Rukia slipped off her panties and bra, tossing them lightly on the pile of her other clothes.

Taking a deep breath and stretching her arms and back, Rukia caught sight of herself in the mirror. "This may be hard for an A-I to understand, but we humans have a rather difficult time living in space. We've boiled the whole thing down to an equation, as cruel as that sounds," she said, scrutinizing a few of the minor scars she had. She splayed her fingers out down her side, feeling the edge of an old wound. She heard Lirin whimper as she traced the faded scar and shook her head ruefully. "Are you okay Lirin?" Rukia asked, figuring the poor girl to be unused to such sensations. She seemed so mature and confident about topics she was comfortable with that Rukia had to remind herself that deep down she must still be very inexperienced.

"Yes! Yes, I'm fine Rukia," Lirin replied, clearly breathless and trying hard to stay on topic. "This is all just very new. Let's keep talking about math, that'll help. You mentioned an equation? The energy to survival time ratio?"

"That's the one," Rukia said. "Basically, the smaller you make your habitation enclosure, the less energy and resources it takes to maintain. Same idea with people, if you're going to spend the energy to maintain a habitat, it's only economical to make sure the habitat is always occupied, so you double or triple occupancy and put everyone on adjusted shifts. Energy consumption is usually everyone's primary concern when you're out here." Rukia sat down on the edge of the filled tub and dipped her legs beneath the rippling waters. Sighing, she slid further in and let the warmth envelop her entire body.

"I hope you appreciate the irony," Lirin said, her voice mellowing and Rukia imagined her eyes must be closed contentedly, "Of saying that while sitting in a tub full of warm water."

"The water reclamation system will filter and recycle all the water in the tub when we're done," Rukia dismissed. "Besides, if we didn't bring along at least _some_ things to make life more bearable out here, no one would come," she mumbled, sinking into the water up to her chin.

"I see, that was a good idea," Lirin mumbled back.

They relaxed in the tub until Rukia's fingers started to wrinkle and the temperature began to cool off. Exiting the water was another unique experience for Lirin, who had never before felt what it was like to go from a warm bath to the chill air before.

"Towels? This place must be really old," Rukia said, shaking one out before wrapping herself up. She shuffled over to the counter and began looking around in the different cabinets. "I wonder what Ichigo is doing," she idly mentioned, running a brush through her short black hair while rummaging through the contents of a drawer.

"Oh, he and Kon are exercising in the cargo bay. Well, Ichigo is exercising, Kon is complaining that he is doing it wrong," Lirin said.

"Exercising?" Rukia asked archly, "Is that a euphemism for something?" Spying what she had been looking for, she snatched up the object and flicked it on, a pale red light humming across the top crosspiece. "Finally, this was really beginning to bug me," she grumbled, setting one of her feet up on the countertop and skimming the shaver smoothly up her leg.

"Uh, no. Kon is instructing Ichigo in martial arts," Lirin replied. "Ichigo says it is difficult to stay in shape in zero-gravity, so Kon devised a routine for him. I personally think he did it just so he could yell at Ichigo some more," she sniffed.

"Martial arts seems an odd choice for a pacifist," Rukia said.

"Are you sure you're supposed to shave there? And Kon may be a pacifist but he still believes in self-defense. He originally was a combat application you know."

"If you ever had to spend thirty-plus hours straight E-V-A'ed in a combat assault hardsuit, you'd understand," Rukia said, finishing up. She put the shaver back and set the towel aside, running her hands over herself. "Much better."

"It feels so... naughty," Lirin whispered, morbidly embarrassed.

"It's better than the alternative, guys have it so much easier," Rukia said, laughing lightly at sheltered A.I.s flustered admonitions as she slipped her clothes back on. "Come on, let's find Ichigo."

* * *

"It's like you're not listening to me at all, you know that?" Kon said, sounding out of breath, over the cargo bay speaker, "Here I am trying to help you and you don't even have the decency to at least listen to my advice."

"It's because you talk too much, and I thought I asked you to switch to my implant," Ichigo said, breathing hard. "Just play the sequence again."

"Try to pay attention this time," Kon said, reactivating the display of a simple figure inside his neural link and moving it through the current sequence.

"Which physics model did you use when you designed this?" Ichigo grumbled, looking dubiously at the moves performed by the virtual figure. He brushed his hands together and sighed, setting his feet and moving into the first form.

"Wrong," Kon said.

Ichigo ignored him and completed the first form, moving into the second.

"Wrong again," Kon said, more insistently. "The body moves, not just your arm. Slow, like a lizard!"

"A what?" Ichigo asked, shifting his weight forwards and turning. The muscles across his stomach and thighs were burning from the continuous, methodical forms and movements, each requiring him to be fully aware of his body in order to flow smoothly from one to the next. It wouldn't be so bad if Kon wasn't exacerbating the situation by continually interrupting him.

"Kids today, growing up spaced, don't even know what a lizard is," Kon said in disdain.

"I can look it up," Ichigo said, trying to stay balanced on one foot as he continued to move through the form.

"Still wrong!" Kon said. "I don't know what you're doing with your hips, but it's not good."

"I don't know about that," Rukia said from the wide cargo bay doorway, "They look okay to me."

Ichigo paused at the sound of her voice, momentarily surprised. He dropped from the position he was in and turned to see her walking into the cargo bay, her black hair brushed back and wet, clad only in her flightsuit pants and pressure shirt. "How long have you been standing there?" he asked, self-consciously aware he was only wearing his utility pants.

" _We_ haven't been standing her very long at all," Rukia said, stretching her arms across her chest, coming to a stop in front of him and snapping him a short, formal bow, knocking loose a lock of black hair. When she straightened up she fell into a loose fighting stance, flashing him a dangerous smile. "I know a little about hand-to-hand, being a soldier and all," she said, "So you're welcome to come see what the _real_ thing is like, or you can keep playing with yourself."


	18. Second Contact

"So you have Lirin onboard?" Ichigo asked, taking his time to watch her stretch the muscles of her arms and legs. "What made you change your mind?" he asked, seeing her nod.

"Just a little girl-talk," Rukia said, beginning to bounce on her toes.

"Hi Ichigo, hi Kon," Lirin chirped over the speaker in the cargo bay. "Try not to hurt each other, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on him," Rukia said, a predatory gleam in her eye.

"That is the hottest thing I think I've ever seen," Kon said over the speaker.

"What's the matter Ichigo? Afraid to fight a little girl?" Rukia asked saucily.

Ichigo sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, deciding to humor her. "I must be crazy to go up against navy soldier," he said, moving into what he felt to be the most comfortable stance he knew. "I mean, this is really only to get my heart rate up."

"I have no doubt that she can get your blood pumping," Kon said suggestively.

True to Kon's word, as soon as Ichigo was ready Rukia began a simple offensive. Firing a series of jabs and crosses, she steadily advanced as Ichigo somewhat clumsily blocked and evaded. She pushed him back on his heels as she ran through a beginner sequence even an ensign could counter. "C'mon Ichigo, you're going to have to do better than that," she said as she pressed her attack. Once settled into her routine, she could feel the muscle memory of her training sessions take hold. As fun and light as she was trying to keep it, she was finding it difficult to ignore her years as a navy operative.

"Bah, just forget about Ichigo. Now, me for example, I could show you a real good time," Kon said over the speaker.

"Kon," Ichigo said, half-warningly, half-alarmed as he worked on deflecting Rukia's measured jabs. She was telegraphing them for his benefit, but they were coming quicker and quicker as she advanced and he backed away.

"What? C'mon man, look at her!" Kon defended. "So lithe, so nubile... Hey Ichigo, how limber do you think she is?"

"You're not helping, Kon," Ichigo said, blocking a swift kick at his midsection, his forearms bruising from the impact. Even though he knew she was sparring, he could tell she was having difficulty separating it from real combat. Her moves had a battle-trained soldier's efficiency and deliberateness to them, each one fully capable of debilitating him quickly and cleanly had they come in faster and gone unblocked.

Kon laughed over the tinny speaker. "Of course I'm not helping, she's gonna kick your ass and I'm enjoying the view."

"Your stance is sloppy and your movements lack discipline," Rukia sniffed, halting her offensive. Her tongue tied itself up in her mouth once she realized how similar she sounded to her instructors, how close her phrasing was to that of her ever-disapproving brother. She had wanted this to be a simple exercise but it was already devolving into something familiar and unpleasant from her past. _Is that all I am, a soldier?_ she thought, _Am I really this repressed?_

"Gee, thanks."

She cleared her throat and tried to clear her mind, taking a few steps back from him and smoothing her hair from her brow. "C'mon, let's see if offense is more your style."

Ichigo took the opportunity to shake out the tingles and stings across his arms as he settled back into a ready position. "My stance is not sloppy," he levelly informed her. "It's comfortable. I'd get a cramp in my shoulders if I was all curled up around my arms like you are," he teased.

"This is a perfectly viable hand-to-hand combat position," Rukia replied, mildly indignant.

"If you say so," Ichigo said, taking a measured step towards her and beginning his own attack routine, "But you look a little tightly wound." He ignored her parries, stinging slightly more than they needed to, as she expertly knocked each attack away. He caught her eye as she deflected his arm up above her, saying, "Maybe it's just your personality."

"Are you saying," Rukia began as she cast aside his caught arm and blocked his following jab with her elbow, "That I'm uptight?"

"You're a little on the straight-laced side," Ichigo admitted as his second jab was blocked by her other elbow. "It comes across in your stance," he said as she dodged his right cross, letting the follow-through lead him into switching places with her.

"Do I need to point out," she said, easily defeating his next sequence of attacks, "That your offense is reckless and unrefined?" She weaved her way through his next set of attacks and ended up inside his reach, blocking both his arms in a brief stalemate by locking them down close to her body. "Somewhat like your own personality," she tossed at him over her shoulder. She realized suddenly how close he was at that brief moment, the arch of his wry grin, the boyish glint in his chocolate eyes, and felt a crack split across the armor of her soldier persona.

She felt him relax his hands and she shivered slightly as his fingers brushed over her, the soldier in her beginning to give way as a mild warmth spread across her skin where his fingers had skimmed. She saw him chuckle at her as the two of them slipped apart, both beginning to flush and breathe a bit harder from their half-dance, half-sparring session.

Ichigo's lanky frame gave him an enormous reach and his ceaseless work on spaceship engines had corded the muscles across his arms and shoulders while performing tiny, delicate mechanical calibrations had imbued them with a controlled precision normally found only in the bio-modified. Still, he kept it simple and telegraphed, but even if he hadn't he had no doubt Rukia could block each jab, cross and hook as he sent them at her.

His attacks were basic, she noticed, which made sense given his instructor and level of experience. However, he moved his body smoothly behind the motions of his arms, shifting his weight from his leading leg and rolling his shoulders to follow through each jab and cross. She ducked beneath his sweeping right hook and tapped her fist against the muscles of his stomach, leaving it there a bit longer than she otherwise would have, feeling the hard ridges against the skin of her knuckles.

Ichigo only laughed as he quick stepped away from her, touching the spot she had tapped him. "Alright, you got me. I hope you had your fun." He lifted his eyes up and watched her bouncing again on the balls of her feet, visibly more relaxed as a sly smile curved her lips and a flush sent her skin glowing.

"I'm just getting warmed up. We'll stop if you can touch me back." Their dance was different now, the two of them had weaved their bodies closer, the blocks and parries had become less about avoiding danger and more about the sensation of their skin sliding across each other. Their dodges were close enough to feel the body heat radiating from one another.

They both tuned out Kon's perverted comment about where he'd touch her, instead focusing on each other as they began to trade a slow series of strikes, blocks, retaliations, evasions, and feints. Taking time to smirk at each other after particularly elegant parries in Rukia's case, or last second, semi-desperate dodges in Ichigo's case.

"I still say your stance leaves you too vulnerable," Rukia said between attacks, gently weaving between Ichigo's measured jabs before countering with a sweeping kick at his ribs. She wasn't about to tell him that his quickness was mostly making up for his inability to predict her attacks, and allowed him to defend the areas he left open most of the time, just so long as he saw her coming.

"You keep talking about my stance," Ichigo began, stepping back and letting her foot whistle past, a hair's breath from his chest, "And I'm gonna start thinking you're checking me out." He took a moment to savor her caught expression, then another to admire the way her kick had pulled the material of her flightsuit tight against her hips and butt, but was forced to reposition himself as she tried to sweep his legs out from under him.

Seeing an opportunity, he stepped back in and sent a downward hook aimed right at her shoulder as she moved to stand back up. As his arm crossed his line of sight he expected his fist to land a tap against her, but it connected with nothing but air. His arm completed the motion and his line of sight cleared, but Rukia had vanished, the only indication giving her away was a light scuff against the cargo bay floor right beside him. Instead of a light tap against his abdomen again, he felt a smooth, quick caress as Rukia stood back up well inside his reach. Surprised, he shuffled back but Rukia rolled right beneath his arm and around him, trailed a finger down the ridges of his spine and followed it up with a smack on his ass.

She watched him skitter back, jolted by the contact. "If I wasn't checking you out, I wouldn't be able to pick my targets," she said sweetly.

"Ooooooh," Lirin laughed over the speaker.

"She's feisty," Kon said, "I like that."

It was becoming clear to him that he was never going to keep pace with her in terms of hand to hand combat. The dancer's grace that she kept bottled up beneath her training as soldier had begun to show and he was finding it too distracting to build any type of solid defense against. "You're asking for it," Ichigo said, deciding on a different tack as he rubbed his rear.

Rukia watched him take his stance again, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "See, I told you sparring was better than doing it alone," she said, deflecting his first strike high and stepping beneath it, out of the way of his incoming low jab. Ducking beneath his arm, she sighed in exasperation at how he could leave himself open again, and shot her fist out at his obliques, just to teach him a lesson, she told herself. Without warning, she found her wrist caught securely as he rolled out of the way of her punch, spinning her on her heels.

"You didn't think I'd fall for that again, did you?" he said, putting his chin over her shoulder as he slipped up close behind her. He felt her body tense through her wrist and watched as her breath caught in her throat. Just as suddenly, her body melted against him, Rukia pressing her back to his chest as she smoothed out her free hand against his thigh. His eyebrows shot up as she tipped her head back to catch him with her eyes, half lidded as she let her body press silkily against his own.

After that, he really didn't know what happened. One second he had been thoroughly enjoying the feeling of Rukia's slender body pressed against him, and the next found him flat on his back on the hard, cold metal floor of the cargo bay. He didn't even bother moving as Rukia stepped into view and planted herself directly onto his stomach with a self-satisfied expression on her face.

"I have some great video of your face going all slack, right before she threw you on the ground, Ichigo," Lirin said lightly from the speaker across from them.

"Great," Ichigo said from the ground, "Just make sure my dad doesn't see it."

"Or this." Rukia swung one of her knees over his chest to straddle his stomach, crossed her arms to place them on his chest, and leaned down to smile in his face. "Do I still seem uptight?"

"Nope," he said, suddenly very happy with her seating arrangement. "I could get used to relaxed, less stressed Rukia." He began lightly trailing his hands up and down her legs, his fingertips grazing over the folds in the flightsuit material.

"It's been proven a good workout does wonders for stress." Her voice was lowering to a whisper as she leaned down closer, letting her hair drape around his face as she let her body mold down onto his. "So did I get your blood pumping?" she whispered, some heat slipping into her voice.

"Oh yeah," came Ichigo's, Kon's, and Lirin's response all in unison. It was enough to nearly spoil the intimate mood until Ichigo slid his hand up behind her neck and capture her lips with his own. Rukia could feel that delicious tightness across her body tense and her heart begin to race as his thumb skimmed across the pulse point beneath her ear.

Smiling against each others lips, Rukia had slipped her hands up his bare chest and was just about to deepen their kiss when Kon's voice rang out across the cargo bay.

"Proximity alert!"

"Thanks for the heads up Kon, but I think I can handle it," Ichigo muttered, trying to recapture her lips.

"Not you two, there's an inbound craft coming in fast."

"Designation?" Rukia asked, giving Ichigo a longing look before rolling off of him.

"None transmitted," Kon said over the speaker.

"Spectroscope is useless," Lirin said, sounding breathy and mildly distracted. "Engine braking heat bloom is masking the composition and silhouette."

"We'll have to continue our, uh... workout some other time, maybe a bit more private," Rukia said, resignedly shifting mental gears. When she stood up she had returned to her familiar role as a soldier, but she noticed it was becoming less and less comfortable. "Time to intercept?"

"At present velocity, eighteen minutes," Kon said.

"Eighteen? What's the matter with you Kon?" Ichigo said, brushing off the seat of his pants and snatching up his nearby shirt.

"Ive been kinda distracted between running your data query and having my sensory system hooked up to yours!"

"It was just getting good too," Lirin complained.

"We know they're slowing down, which means it's probably not just a fly-by. The station is lit up so they'll know someone's home. Let's hope it's just some inquisitive scavenger or cargo ship and not a pirate or..." Ichigo cast a glance at Rukia, remembering the artifact they have secured in the hold, "Something else."

"We should head to the interceptor and prep for any eventuality." Rukia began pulling the sleeves of her flightsuit down her arms and made to seal it up.

"We can't," Ichigo said, "Kon and Lirin are still loaded."

"Well, let's go unload them."

"It's not that simple, the time limit exists for a reason," Lirin said. "I mean, it's possible, but you won't like what happens."

"Why not? What happens?" Rukia asked, beginning to glare at Ichigo.

"You know how you felt as your nervous system worked out how to talk to both you and Lirin? Unloading early is kinda the opposite, only worse," Ichigo admitted. "At two hours, the effects equalize and unloading isn't anything more than another headache, but going past two hours is a big problem."

"What happens beyond two hours?"

"Uh, well. The theory is that it would eventually lead to personality integration. Or supplantation. Or, uh... psychosis."

"We could get stuck in here, for good," Lirin said. "Or we could all go mad. No one wants that."

"What? You told me this was safe!"

"It's just a theory, I'm not certain it would happen. Anyway, as long as we don't go over or under the two hour limit, it's perfectly safe," Ichigo said. "I've gone over the limit by fifteen minutes before, the effects were temporary but I'd rather not repeat the experience."

"Speak for yourself, I had almost full control of your left hand," Kon said fondly.

"Yeah, that was fucking weird, we're never doing that again."

"Whatever, your neural link is weird anyway," Kon grumbled.

"How much time is left on the clock then?" Rukia asked, checking her neural link. She would have to discuss the concept of full disclosure with Ichigo at some point, the revelation that Kon had gained control of Ichigo's nervous system was unsettling at best.

"We've got another forty six minutes," Ichigo said, leading the way from the cargo bay up towards station command.

"Any probes we can use to get a look at the inbound ship?" Rukia asked, jogging to keep up with him.

"The station hasn't had any in years," Kon said over the speaker system down one hall.

"No weapons, I take it?"

"Sorry, they were pretty thorough when they decommissioned this place," Lirin said.

Rukia sighed in frustration, stepping onto the station command deck and flicking on one of the control screens. She opened the sensor system and moved the results to the main center display that Ichigo has just activated. It sprang to life with an audible hum as green light flooded the top of the panel, the information lensing into focus as it brought up the image of the station in the center and a glowing yellow dot near the edge.

"Heat bloom is still blocking the sensors from getting a good reading," Ichigo said, tapping at the controls and peering at the display. "Think I should open a comm line?"

"You can try, but if they're not broadcasting a designation, they won't be jumping to answer the comms," Rukia pointed out. The four of them watched in pregnant silence as the seconds ticked by, each one bringing the mysterious ship closer and closer to the station.

"You don't think a navy ship could have followed your engine wash out here, do you?" Lirin said into Rukia's ear.

"Unlikely, given the time frame. They shouldn't be looking directly for us for a few more hours," she whispered back.

"We'll know for certain in a few minutes," Lirin replied. "If I don't get a chance to say so later, thank you for letting me share your neural link."

Rukia would have replied but the sensor system readouts commanded her attention. The heat bloom was beginning to dissipate and they were getting a clearer picture of the incoming vessel. The braking engines died away as the ship gradually eased to a near-stop, the video feed to one of the dust-covered displays focusing on it as Ichigo and Rukia both began to stare.

"My God..." Rukia breathed.

"Composition analysis is getting odd data, but ship identification says it's a long range ore hauler, with the cargo bays jettisoned," Kon said.

"But it looks all...," Ichigo muttered, wiping away the dust on the screen. "What happened to it?" The dust cleared and the two of them could see the image of the ship in startling clarity. Like some horrid abomination, the stained skin of the old ore ship was wrapped in sinewy tendrils of pale, diseased looking flesh. The malignant growth across the dull gray metal glistened in the harsh glare of the station's tracking lights as the ship loomed larger and larger, angling itself into line with the station's main airlock.

"If it was possible, I think I'd be sick," Lirin gagged. The pustule-ridden mass of bulging, cancerous flesh had spread across the entire ship, wrapping it in coils of stringy red-gray tissue as if it were perpetually strangulating it.

"It looks like some type of... infection," Rukia said thickly, "But I've never heard of anything like that before."

"So that's not a..." Ichigo began, looking significantly at her.

"I won't rule it out, but it's unlike anything I've ever seen," she replied.

"Whatever it is," Kon said, growing alarmed, "Don't let it dock with the station!"

"I'd be curious to know how you'd like us to accomplish that," Rukia said, "Any weapons we have are on the interceptor, docked at the other end of the station, pointed the wrong way and it's too dangerous to pilot it by remote while it's so close to us."

"I'm getting a response from the ship's status transponder," Ichigo interrupted, "Life support is functioning, atmo is stable and breathable, but hull integrity's been compromised across the ship. This is odd, the manifest system says the crew are all crammed into the starboard re-entry shuttle..." He stopped speaking abruptly, his fingers poised over a few controls on a neural link display panel as he examined the sudden shift in available information.

Rukia's brows creased at him. "What?"

"The automatic transponder system just dropped out, now all I'm getting are a series of audio tones."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, a pretty basic pattern. Three short, three long, three short, then it repeats."

"Hey! That's a distress signal!" Lirin exclaimed. "Don't you guys know anything?"

The connection to the ore ship's transponder fractured apart and whitenoise screamed into his mind. "Gah!" Ichigo sliced his hand across the connection feed in his neural link, severing the line. "The signal was cut, it's just static now."

"They're getting up close and personal here," Kon warned. "They'll be docked in about two minutes."

"Ichigo," Rukia said as she watched the sensor system report an uncomfortably familiar energy signal coming from the ship. Methodical and calmly in control, she tightened her gloves and checked the seal on her flightsuit. "Patch the station's sensor feed into the _Sode no Shirayuki's_ T-A system. I want confirmation that's what I think it is."

"Way ahead of you," he replied, his fingers flicking across the control panels. "If it is, what's the plan?"

"I'll let you know when I have one. In the mean time, see if you can seal the airlock, if you can't then meet me on the main airlock deck in ninety seconds." Rukia turned from the command deck, heading for where her own ship was docked. She opened a comm line to Ichigo as she marched down the halls, bringing up her tactical overlay and shaking the last of her nervous tingles from her fingers.

"What is it?" Lirin asked into her ear. "Kon and I have quietly scoured the data stores for anything that could match what is covering that ship and come up empty, but you two know something. Your heart rate and adrenalin levels are elevated. I feel scared, Rukia."

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Rukia said, ducking through the airlock and slipping onto her ship.

"We're getting too far from my processor core," Lirin reminded her, "Latency is getting noticeable."

"Don't worry," she said, sliding open her weapon locker in the tiny cabin and pulling out her weapon harness and twin pistols. "Just need some hardware." She heard an alert from the cockpit of the interceptor, the dim panels lighting up and blazing scarlet.

"Rukia! Hollow energy signature confirmed," Ichigo said over their comm line.

"On my way," she said back, staring at the ship's threat assessment display, 'HLW Detected - Configuration: Unknown' blinking back at her.

"Is that bad?" Lirin whispered.

"Yeah, this is bad."

Rukia met Ichigo on the main airlock deck, strapping on her weapon harness as he watched the massive ship drifting closer and closer to the huge circular doorway. Through the large viewports on either side, they could see the ore ship's gangway prepare for extension and how the tendrils of fibrous tissue, covered in sores and lesions, had weaved their way through the metal plating of the ship in hundreds of places. "You said there were life signs onboard?"

Ichigo nodded grimly, tugging a tangle of metal struts connected together by flex-force joints and old style hydraulic pistons behind him. "The ship's crew, according to the manifest. The shuttle info was limited and didn't list their status, but they were all together."

"Who's flying the ship then?" Kon asked. Silence met his question before the station shuddered beneath their feet, the docking gangway locking into position against the massive main airlock with a thundering, ominous bang.

"It's possible that this is some kind of automated emergency docking run, but someone had to have changed the transponder to a distress signal, and someone else must have cut the connection," Ichigo hazarded. "The crew may need assistance."

"You know you're not obligated to do anything here, Ichigo," Rukia said carefully. "There's no reason for you to risk yourself. I may not be a G-13 operative at the moment, but it's still my duty to investigate." She kept her eyes down as she changed out the ammunition in her weapons.

"Yeah, I know," Ichigo said, his scowl deepening into grim determination as he hefted the old loader frame across his shoulders, slipping his arms through the tension bands and into the oversized metal gauntlets. The frame powered to life down his spine and he flexed his fingers, testing the strength-enhancing limits and the range of motion. The joints and pistons squealed in minor protest as Ichigo turned back to Rukia. "But I'm not the kind of guy who could live with myself if I let my partner walk into danger alone."

She afforded him a small smile in thanks before turning back to the massive airlock door. "How far can we get from the station's wireless system before it begins to affect you two?" Rukia asked, watching the airlock status go green.

"You're closer to the computer bay up here than you are down at the auxiliary airlocks, where the interceptor is docked. We shouldn't have too much trouble so long as you don't go into the further reaches of the ship," Kon said. "Otherwise the latency delay will force us to start cutting connections to the station to preserve bandwidth, cut too much and it'll start to lobotomize us, so don't be doing that."

"C'mon Kon," Ichigo said, hearing the locking clamps retract from airlock door as it unsealed and began to roll aside, "Odds are no one would notice if you were lobotomized."

"Har har," Kon replied dryly. "Eugh, what is that smell?" The air pressure differential between the station and the ship had equalized, bringing with it the stomach-churning stench of bile as hot, humid, fetid air rushed out of the gangway.

Feeling slightly green, Rukia pushed the nausea away as she raised her weapons, sighting them at the darkness beyond the airlock. For a tremendously long second, nothing moved, then a crack of light appeared at the other end of the gangway, deep inside the ship, as the opposite airlock door swung open. Beside her, Ichigo squinted into the dim tunnel connecting the ship to the station, the creaks and squeals from the joints of the loader frame the only noise on the utterly silent deck.

"You see anything? Any movement?" he asked quietly. He saw her shake her head, still aiming down the gangway. "Should we go check it out?"

"Let's check the shuttle for the crew, the flight log for where it's been, and then see about decoupling it from the station. We'll need to push it away to quarantine it, or destroy it."

"Have you guys considered just how big of a bad idea this is?" Kon pointed out as the two of them discreetly held their breaths and began to cautiously walk across the gangway.

"We have a responsibility to check on the crew of this ship," Ichigo said, walking as quietly as he could.

"And if this does have some type of Hollow biological contamination, we have a duty to contain it," Rukia finished.

"What's a Hollow?" Lirin whispered in her ear.

"Big, nasty evil spaceborne aliens that eat spaceships."

"Those are real? Do they do... whatever happened to this ship?"

"If they do," Rukia whispered back, carefully stepping across the airlock threshold, "It'll be something new." The ship was oppressively hot and reeked of the vile, sickly sweet stench of decay. Less than half of the emergency lights were functioning and those that were flickered weakly, leaving the interior dark and eerily still. Ichigo and Rukia, standing close to each other, waited with bated breath for something, anything to stir in the poorly lit recesses of the ship's halls.

When nothing did, Ichigo brought up the interior schematics of the ore ship model, scanning for the shuttle launch deck and the bridge. "Down this way."

"Something is wrong here," Kon whispered into Ichigo's ear, "And not just the smell."

"Shhh, I think I hear something," he replied. He froze, turning slightly to sharpen his hearing. Rukia's eyes, a luminous gray-violet, caught his own as he watched her freeze and listen as well. She nodded, hearing something in the distance as well. Together they moved slowly down the corridor, his footfalls on the metal grating echoing through the ship, hers falling as lightly as drifting snow.

The malodorous air within the ship became progressively more pungent as the made their way deeper within the ship. They paused as they came to a central access shaft, stairs led upwards towards the crew compartments while down would lead them normally to cavernous ore loading holds. Spiraling down the handrails and creeping over the stairs were interwoven, vine-like lengths of organic tissue.

Ichigo, unsure of the wisdom of his own actions, stooped a bit to examine them. "Oh God," he said, the smell knocking him back on his heels. "It's pus... The ship is oozing pus!"

"Let's stay focused and keep moving," Rukia suggested, carefully stepping up the stairs.

"I'm going to need a boiling hot shower after this," Ichigo muttered, following her. The slime-coated ropes of bulging, necrotic tissue pulsed along the walls and down beneath the grating in a macabre mockery of some natural organism. They pressed on, each stifling their own disquiet at the extent and nature of the infection spreading across the ship.

"If it's pulsing, that means it has a heart, somewhere... doesn't it?" Kon whispered to Ichigo as they crested the landing at the top of the stairs and entered what appeared to be the main living deck of the ship. The noise they heard earlier was louder up here, repeating over and over from somewhere up ahead.

He only nodded in response before whispering to Rukia, "You think that's some kind of automated signal, or recorded warning?"

Figuring they'd find out soon enough, and that Ichigo's question was rhetorical in the first place, she didn't immediately reply. Keeping a careful eye on the staircase behind them, she continued with Ichigo as they moved down the short hall, the walls and ceiling now beginning to become heavily overgrown with the glistening, vein-like lengths of flesh. The last thing she wanted wanted was their escape route blocked or cut off without warning.

Ducking carefully through a blast door frame, the two of them silently examined the doors themselves, wrenched apart and hanging off their mechanisms, as if torn aside by enormous force. They gingerly stepped around them they walked into what was obviously serving as the ship's main communications bay and the source of the echoing noises they'd been hearing. A bevy of mismatched signal processing hardware, comm consoles and oversized display panels all jury-rigged together spread before them, cables and wires tangled across the floor. The far wall behind the monitors was overgrown with pulsing, quivering tissue, some of it threatening to envelope the consoles and spread across the control surfaces.

"Well, this is disturbing," Ichigo said, staring at the large banks of display panels, the gaps between each filled with swollen, purplish coils of flesh. On each of the displays were still images from obvious surveillance video taken on Karakura station, all depicting Ichigo, Rukia, or the two of them together. One of the displays had a video clip loaded on repeat, showing Ichigo and Rukia standing outside the cafe and getting on his hover cycle before speeding away. Ichigo pressed a metal-gloved finger to the control board, freezing the display and snuffing out the recorded sound of the station's background noise. In the sudden silence, Ichigo stepped back to scowl thoughtfully at the images.

"Who would do this?" Rukia asked, examining an image of them. "This was taken inside Urahara's hangar, from up in the ventilation system."

"Same with this one, outside the berth where the clinic is."

"Someone is paying far too much attention to us," Rukia said, "Let's find the crew of the ship and get some answers on why."

The shuttle launch bays were to either side of the communications room, but the lights down the short corridors were completely dark. Shining the meager light from Ichigo's flashlight and Rukia's chemical light across the sealed bay doors, they threw long shadows up onto the walls around them. Ichigo, frowning at the sealed door, poked the access panel with his finger and then tried to open a control panel in his neural link, both to no avail. "It's locked."

"What do you mean?" Rukia asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Exactly what I said," Ichigo groused, "The shuttle access doors are sealed, look." He pointed to the display panels on either side, each glowing with a dim red biohazard symbol. Beneath it read 'Quarantine Alert - Foreign Pathogen Detected'. "Hey! Turn on the video feed!" he shouted at the heavy metal door.

"Keep it down! They'll never be able to hear you through the airlock door anyway," Rukia muttered harshly.

"They'll hear this." Ichigo stepped back and raised his gauntleted fist, aiming it squarely at the center of the door.

"Ichigo! We're trying to keep a low..."

Ichigo sent his fist hurtling at the heavy airlock door. The metal-shod fist of his loader frame collided with the center of the door and sent a deep, resonating bang reverberating through the ore ship. The impact left his teeth vibrating and his hand numb as he drew his fist back, tiny dents from the knuckles of his gauntlet pressed into the door.

"Profile." Rukia glared at him in exasperation. She had opened her mouth to tell him off more firmly when one of the display screen on the side of the bay door went blank, the blazed into bright whiteness. Shielding her eyes from the light, it slowly resolved from static into a video feed, focusing on the dimly lit interior of the shuttle. A shape moved drunkenly from the blurry recesses of the room, coming closer to peer into the video display.

Looking pale and haggard, wheat-blond hair hanging long around his drawn face, the man stared uncomprehendingly at them through the video feed for a few seconds before obviously saying something to someone off camera, motioning weakly with his hand.

"I think there's no audio," Ichigo said, watching the man on the display continue to silently mouth something.

"Brilliant deduction," Rukia said as another figure limped into frame, a blond young woman with her hair done up in spiky tails, her arms clutched around her stomach and weariness obvious in her lined, shadowed eyes. He held his other hand out towards the display, his lips shaping syllables that bore a strong resemblance to 'Ichigo and Rukia' as he spoke to the woman, pride and relief evident even in his pained state.

The woman stared at him, then at Ichigo and Rukia, then turned to look off camera, horror slowly dawning on her face. She swung back around at the blond man and smacked him on the back of his head, her eyes flashing as she yelled at him, pointing at the display and then off camera. The little color on his face quickly drained away as he turned to stare at them, the whites visible all the way around his eyes. Leaning forward, he began silently, desperately yelling at the display.

Shrugging at Rukia, Ichigo cocked his head at the display and pointed at his ear before shaking his head in a negative fashion. A far off scuttling, chittering noise rattled through the bulkheads and grating. Rukia, Ichigo and the two on the display panel all froze, looking around at the walls and ceiling as the noises echoed disorientingly around them.

"What is..." Ichigo began, seeing Rukia staring intently the display. The two blond figures on the screen, their faces contorted in fear and illness, were bent towards their screen.

"Look," Rukia pointed out, "Something is wrong with their eyes."

"Who cares, look at what they're saying!" Ichigo shouted.

Rukia shifted her vision from their curious eyes and realized that the two figures in the display were shouting a single, unmistakable word: "Run!" With a crackle of static that rang sharp in the corridor, the display screen video feed cut out, the image of the two distorting a moment before vanishing completely. Gripping her weapons tightly in the sudden gloom, she glanced at Ichigo as he turned his back on the shuttle dock door.

"Kon, bring up an internal sensor system connection to the station, I want to know what's going on," Ichigo said hurriedly, turning to head back towards the communications bay.

"Can't, already tried," Kon said back to him, "The internal sensors are all offline or malfunctioning, probably from this... thing growing across the ship."

Ichigo froze mid-step. "What about station sensors? Train them at the ship and pick up thermal signatures?"

"Won't work either, the interior of the ship is already too warm."

"Well, let's take blondie's advice and get off this..." Ichigo halted as he saw movement, a shadow detaching from the darkness to stand at the opposite end of the hall. The glow of the screens lit the vaguely human-shaped figure from behind, moving slowly down the center of the corridor. Out of habit, he lifted the small flashlight he held in his hand, the shaft of light shining over the figure.

With surprising quickness, the figure lifted an arm to shield his face from the glare. Ichigo noted the skin of his hand bore a striking resemblance to the lengths of diseased tissue threading through the ship. The figure shuffled back a step, retreating from the light, his old miner's coalition softsuit rustling as he stumbled.

Rukia, maintaining her cool demeanor, sighted both her weapons down the corridor. "Colonial Navy, identify yourself!"

The figure dropped its arm slightly, turning a baleful, inhuman gaze upon the two of them. The softsuit was shredded and torn across his body, beneath it stringy red muscle tissue snaked out of open sores, holding dull, jagged plates of torn metal against the figure's swollen, blistered skin. They watched as the figure jerked spasmodically, the skin of his cheekbone splitting open and spilling bright red arterial blood down his face. From within, a number of dripping tentacle-like muscle fibers uncoiled, instantly adhering to a shield-like plate of metal he held up across his wounded, ravaged face.

"Identify ourself?" it rasped, his voice was strained like it was tearing itself from his mouth, "The White Moon mocks us." It crouched down in the corridor as chittering, scrabbling noises grew nearer. "The White Moon knows our kind well," he said, madness and excitement warring behind his round eyes. His split and broken lips rolled away from his teeth, half of them replaced by jagged shards of metal, before screaming, "AND WE KNOW HER!" It surged forward, skittering across the grating on all fours like an insect.

The corridor was filled with sudden, deafening metallic thunder as Rukia unleashed a hail of gunfire. As quickly as it erupted it was gone, tendrils of smoke drifting from the barrels of her twin pistols. She kept her weapons trained down the hall as she stood up from a half-crouch. "What the hell," she whispered to herself. "What the hell was that?"

"Let's not stick around to find out," Ichigo said, peering down the now empty corridor. There was no sign of the... thing, alive or otherwise. Having no choice but to return the way they came, Ichigo nodded to Rukia, watching her steel herself before the two of the took off in a swift run down the hall.

The clawing noises scratching across the metal of ship immediately resumed, along with voices distorted by strain and hunger. "RUN LITTLE MOON," screeched one in particular, like rusty nails dragged over glass.

"WARM BLOOD, SOFT FLESH, CATCH AND TEAR, DRINK AND FEAST!" roared another, hammering in their ears.

"SHUT UP!" Ichigo boldly yelled back into the darkness.

The scuttling, chittering, squealing noises surrounded them, but neither could see beyond the meager illumination from Rukia's chemical light and the narrow shaft of Ichigo's flashlight. They burst back into the communications room to find every display screen filled with images of the two of them walking through the halls of the ore ship, some taken right above their heads. Momentarily stunned by how close and detailed some of the images were, they drew up and nervously checked the halls leading off from the comm room.

"You're not going to put a hole in the ship with those, are you?" Ichigo asked, his eyes raking over the ceiling for anything lurking above.

"No," Rukia answered, calmly checking how many bullets she had remaining. "I replaced the depleted uranium rounds with plasti-steel shatters. Decent tissue penetration but easily deflected by anything denser than that."

"How can you be so calm?" Lirin gasped at her, "Look at the monitors! Those things are watching us! Did you see that guy? What... what the hell happened to him?"

"I'm very well trained, Lirin," Rukia replied quietly, "Close quarters combat with assailants unknown in number and firepower is a common exercise."

"Still," said Kon into Ichigo's ear, "His face, his skin."

"I'm thinking it's not just the ship that's infected," Ichigo said.

Rukia flicked her eyes towards him. Truthfully, she was worried about that particular line of reasoning, and now that Ichigo had spoken it aloud it seemed the only plausible explanation. "Humans corrupted by Hollow bio-technology," she said, unable to keep the look of disgust from tugging at her upper lip.

Laughter echoed through the ship, bouncing around the comm room in a disorienting chorus. "You know nothing!" rasped an inhuman, gravelly voice as large shape loomed up in one of the corridors. "The Master has his plan, and we shall carry out his will!"

The two of them only had a second before it raced into the room, all glinting eyes and shining metal. Rukia dove to the side, taking some of the skin from her shoulder and rolling to get her legs back under her before she heard the unmistakable squealing of tearing metal. Spinning to face the sound, she caught sight of Ichigo in the dim, flickering lights, locked in stalemate with another wild figure, bigger and more powerful than the last. One of Ichigo's metal gauntlets had deep rents torn into it, the framework up his arm to his shoulder had been wrenched out of alignment.

"We have been reborn in the Master's vision!" it hissed, dirty, unkempt hair flying behind him as sinewy red muscle tissue writhed beneath the surface of his face. A shield-like plate of metal, obviously torn from the bulkheads of the ship, was pulled roughly into place over his nose and mouth by other strands of red muscle fibers, seemingly unconcerned with the long cuts it had left up his neck and face. It circled with Ichigo, taking experimental swipes at him with some kind of long knife, only to have them knocked aside by Ichigo's gauntlets.

"Who is the Master?" Ichigo demanded, "What has he done to you, why are you attacking us?"

He laughed, a horrid bubbling noise in his throat as he swung his knife at Ichigo again and again, circling him around the comm room. "The Master has not done anything _to_ us, he has cloaked us the form of our prey, so that we may hunt and chase and TEAR AND DEVOUR!" Rukia noticed he was not armed with a knife, but rather his arms and hands had been twisted and mutilated to an excruciating degree. More stringy red muscle tissue writhed and coiled beneath his torn and ragged skin as it secured a number of wickedly pointed and barbed blades to the still-bleeding stumps of his arms.

"You're not a human with a Hollow infection," Ichigo said, the color draining from his face in bleak realization, "You're a _Hollow_."

"Still it does not understand!" It knocked Ichigo's blocking arm away and swept the other arm, jagged metal blades outstretched at Ichigo's midsection. "WE ARE SO MUCH MORE, NOW!"

"Ichigo!" Rukia screamed, taking a bead on the target but hesitant to pull the trigger with him so close. Instead of futilely trying to block or dodge, she watched him step closer into the swing and let it club him in the side. She grimaced as the knife-like points shredded the side of his flightsuit and dug shallow wounds into him, but at least he hadn't been caught across the stomach. It was when she watched him send his cocked and ready fist in a downward cross to catch the Hollow-human across the face with a sickening crunch that she realized he had taken a calculated risk. Ichigo shoved him away, the savage thing momentarily stunned by the vicious punch. Seeing her opportunity, Rukia gently inhaled and put two bullets into the chest of the target before exhaling again. The monstrous figure stumbled back a few more steps, a pair of bullet wounds adding a meager amount of blood to that which already stained his softsuit. The Hollow looked down at his chest and chuckled.

"Your weapons have no bite, Little Moon," it laughed at her, "The gifts of the Master will be your undoing!" It fixed its glowing gaze upon her and stepped forward, the wicked lengths of metal dripping Ichigo's blood as it flexed them menacingly. She heard a grunt of effort and then a heaving exhalation, but her attention was squarely on the target, until he went flying into a wall, pinned there by a thrown comm console.

"I think," Ichigo panted, holding his side, "That shatter rounds aren't the best choice to use against guys who're covering themselves with metal."

Rukia hauled herself to her feet and looked back to where the console had collided with the wall but the figure was gone, a swinging hatch in the grating a short distance away. "We're outmanuevered here, lets get back to the station."

"We are fully behind that plan," Lirin whispered in Rukia's ear, sounding tense and terrified.

Glancing at her weapons and feeling less than reassured, she took off after Ichigo through the halls leading back to the main access stairway. The mocking laughter followed in their wake, chasing after them as they ran through the semi-dark corridors. Reaching the landing at the top of the main access stairway, they could see the lengths of infectious flesh slowly writhing and undulating as new tendrils pushed themselves along the walls and ceiling. The main stairway had become a mass of interwoven, pustulent tissue. The air had turned even more noxious than before and they were both finding it difficult to breathe after running through the ship. Distracted by the overgrown stairway and fighting back the urge to retch, Rukia caught a glinting shadow descend from overhead. Falling flat to the floor, she felt her shoulder ignite in sudden fire as a trio of slashing wounds sliced through her flightsuit and across her upper arm as easily as if they were made of paper.

Lirin screamed in her head as white hot agony seared through her arm. Spinning away from the shape that had dropped out of nowhere, she managed to hang onto both her weapons but was only able to raise one as she landed hard against the stairway wall. She did her best to recall her training and ignore the warm wetness seeping down her sleeve, the screaming fire in her upper arm, Lirin's gasping sobs, and the way the hunched, narrow faced figure was gleefully licking the blood from his clawed hands. It hopped up on the railing of the stairway, balancing with inhuman precision over the precipitous drop.

"Bastard!" Ichigo growled, his fists flashing out at the crouching shape perched upon the railing. The figure skittered around, narrowly evading each of Ichigo's vicious attacks, giggling madly all the while.

Rukia's weapons felt as if they'd doubled their weight, but she was still able to aim with her uninjured arm as the wiry figure tumbled away from Ichigo to land on the stairway steps. His giggling silenced immediately as she squeezed off a single round, the recoil shaking across her body as she lay prone against the wall. The bullet hammered into his shoulder but did no more damage than a rough shove, the impact resounding with a definite metallic twang.

Cackling as it flipped up above their heads to avoid further retaliatory attacks, it grinned down at them maniacally. "WEAK! The White Moon is nothing without the armor she wears against the limitless black!" It leered at them from its perch, clinging to the side of the stairway wall and flexing its claws, drool beginning to drip from its bloody lips.

Ichigo changed tactics and plunged his hands into the wall beneath the laughing Hollow, curling his fingers around the metal paneling and wrenching it free, the pistons and motors across the loader frame groaning. The high-pitched mad giggling shifted into a short cry of surprise as its perch was torn out from beneath it, leaving it scrambling to regain higher ground. Ichigo snatched his foot in his powerful grip and twisted, tugging the Hollow down from the wall and back onto the stairway landing.

"Your weapons are useless against us!" it cried, changing tactics to meet Ichigo head on as it descended.

Ichigo caught and pinned both its arms to the wall, leaving him to stare at the twisted wreckage of a face the Hollow had appropriated. "What the hell are you?"

It smiled back at him, a nightmarish grin of madness and malice, before it kicked Ichigo hard in his wounded side.

Ichigo saw bursts of multicolored lights flash in his eyes and felt his grip weaken enough for the Hollow to free one arm. Knowing it could slash out across his unprotected throat or stab him through the chest, Ichigo had no choice but to clamp his other hand harder the remaining arm and hope his next action would buy him some time. He shifted his weight and pulled, using the brute strength of the loader frame to pop the Hollow's arm out of the socket.

Ichigo fell back, leaving the Hollow against the wall. He knew a dislocated shoulder could be extraordinarily painful and was hoping that it might make him think twice about pursuing them. He expected it to scream and hopefully collapse, but as his vision cleared he saw it standing there, looking confused at its useless arm. It lifted its gaze back to him and shrugged inconsequentially, preparing to step forward but halting as Rukia shoved the barrel of one of her weapons up beneath his chin.

"Foolish Little Moon, didn't you hear? Your weapons cannot harm us now!" it rasped, staring at her out of one discolored, black eye.

"My bullets may not be able to punch through the metal you freaks have grafted to your skin," Rukia said through clenched teeth as her shoulder throbbed in agony, "But I'm pretty sure they'll have no problem with your soft palette." Before it could react beyond widening its eyes, Rukia pulled the trigger. The noise of the gunshot was muffled and wet, the Hollow's body jerking slightly before sinking to its knees and pitching lifelessly onto its side.

Gingerly holstering her guns and pressing her hand against her torn upper arm, she bent down to read the name on his tattered softsuit. "D. R. Linker," she said to herself. She caught Ichigo's clinical glance at her arm and noticed that the sleeve of her flightsuit was nearly covered in blood. "I'm okay, let's get out of here."

Descending the stairs as best they were able, one clutching his side and the other her arm, the two of them pulled to a stop as they faced the corridor leading to the main airlock deck. Double pinpoints of eerie yellow light, more than a dozen of them, bobbed gently in the far reaches of the ore container access tunnels. The scattered, chittering sounds reverberating through the ship had vanished, replaced by slow, steady footfalls of the advancing figures.

"Rukia," Ichigo called out warningly, watching the same figure from the communications room drop down from an access shaft along the corridor leading to the airlock deck. "We're surrounded." He saw her draw and aim one of her weapons down a tunnel, positioning herself at his back and keeping her wounded arm tight against her.

"You have no escape, Little Moon," the shaggy figure said, letting his knife-blade claws scrape slowly along the sides of the corridor. "You are ours."

"My name," she said, turning to set a steely gaze upon him, "Is Rukia Kuchiki, and I belong to _no one_." She spun to Ichigo's side and dropped to one knee, raising her weapon and leveling it down the hall. The shaggy Hollow stood proudly, goading her to shoot. She sighted her target and rapidly squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of shatter shot into the thickest, vilest bulge of coiled flesh along the ceiling. It exploded down into the Hollow's face in a satisfyingly large but completely disgusting splatter of bile, blood and ooze, blinding him just as she had hoped it would.

Screaming in rage as he violently shook his head, trying to clear his vision, he opened his coal black eyes just as the boy came barreling at him. He felt a hard impact in his stomach and looked down in surprise as he was skewered through the chest with a long length of pipe conduit. Gasping, he clutched the spear as he fell to the side, keeping the orange haired one in his shining yellow vision. He began to laugh, blood and black ichor spilling from his mouth and running down his neck. "We will come for you, the hunt will continue, the Master's will be done."

Ichigo took a moment to pause next to the wounded figure, reading the name on the remains of the softsuit. "Who is the Master? What does he want with us?"

"Ichigo," Rukia said, staring back the way they came, the corridor filling with dark, moving shapes and dots of sinister yellow light. "We don't have time for this."

The Hollow let out another bubbling laugh, as if the grievous wound in its side was a minor inconvenience. "No time... you have no time. The Master has fixed his eye upon you and we will carry out his bidding," he croaked.

"ICHIGO!" Rukia yelled, punctuating her voice with a series of thundering gunshots from her weapon, aiming down the corridor with her uninjured arm. She could feel herself starting to get light headed from pain and blood loss. Thankfully, between Linker this other one, the others were beginning to show more caution in their approach.

"You give your 'Master' this message, G. Fisher," Ichigo said, flicking the stained nametag as he stood up, "You tell him he's fuckin' with the _wrong people_." He moved off, running for the airlock deck with Rukia right behind him.

"We cannot be stopped, we coming for you, WE ARE LEGION, WE ARE INNUMERABLE!" Fisher roared behind them, his words chasing them as they sprinted towards the main ore ship's airlock. The few lights remaining in the halls were shattered as dark shapes came rushing after them, plunging the poorly lit ore ship into oppressive gloom.

Ichigo and Rukia slid through the open airlock door and onto the extended gangway as fast as they could, Ichigo shedding his loader frame and Rukia firing the last rounds in her weapon in hopes of slowing their pursuers. "Kon!" Ichigo called out, slapping a hand onto the control surface and opening the airlock door cycle system. "You two need to unbolt your processor cores, it's not safe here anymore."

"You think?" Kon replied. "I take back everything I said about you not visiting often enough, in fact, never come see us again!"

Ichigo activated the airlock door shut sequence and the huge heavy door began slowly swinging closed, but the system responded it was unable to lock from the gangway side as a security precaution. "Fucking piece of junk!" he yelled at it. The panel beneath his hand sparked and suddenly went black, the connection to his neural link severed. The airlock door shuddered and screeched to a stop, barely more than halfway closed. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Come on!" Rukia shouted, grabbing Ichigo by his arm and pulling him after her. As they ran across the gangway, they caught sight of a burst of engine wash above them. Looking up through the arching viewports, the shuttle that they had found was decoupling from the ore ship and tearing itself free of the thick coils of flesh wrapped around it. In a burst of bright blue light, the shuttle picked up speed and quickly accelerated away, flashing across the station and out into the endless night. Ichigo caught sight of the shuttle nameplate stenciled onto the bow as it went past, the front half obscured by torn infected tissue, the rest of it reading as '-vizard'.

Glancing back over his shoulder, the Hollows-turned-humans had crept through the airlock door and were bathed in the clarity of the station's tracking lights shining through the viewports. Ichigo shuddered at what they had done to themselves, and turned back to see the station's airlock door beginning to roll closed.

"I've activated the doorway, hurry up man! They're gaining on us!" Kon shouted in his ear. Rukia gracefully slipped through the closing door while Ichigo, clutching his bleeding side, edged through as the figures came screaming down the gangway. Pulling his foot clear from the airlock just in time, the huge door rolling closed with a thudding stop, Ichigo grimaced away the burning pain in his side as the savage figures began to claw and pound against the other side.

"Ichigo," Kon said over the sound of a few thudding impacts on the other side of the airlock door, "Time's up, we need to get back to the computer bay."

"What do we do about the ore ship and those... things?" he asked.

"They won't be able to get through the..." Rukia said, noticing that the sounds against the airlock door had ceased. Brows creasing in consternation, she hurried over to one of the large side viewports and tried to get an angle to see through onto the gangway. "They're gone, the gangway is empty."

"Rukia..." Lirin whispered, still sounding shaky from pain and exertion.

"Hang on Lirin," Rukia said, "Ichigo, where do you think they went?"

"My guess, probably there," Ichigo replied. He pointed and both their eyes shifted to the other shuttle connected to the ore ship.

"Rukia," Lirin interrupted again, only to be hushed.

"They'll wait us out, then probably follow us when we try to leave in the interceptor," Ichigo said.

"Rukia!" Lirin shouted in her ear.

"What Lirin?" Rukia snapped back, pain and fatigue wearing her patience thin.

"I've... I've re-established the station's interior camera connections to my processor core, I'm detecting multiple heat and motion signals aboard," she said quietly.


	19. 3,473 Degrees Kelvin

"Stop!"

Rukia and Ichigo, edging down the dark hallways, froze mid-step at Lirin's frantic command. They had reached a junction in the comm station's corridor system, working their way from the main airlock towards the computer bay using Lirin's connection to the station as a guide. Strange noises and alien echoes bounced around them at odd intervals but, disconcertingly, they had yet to spot anything. Half of the lights had been destroyed, leaving the interior dark and shadowed, the whole of it gradually becoming eerily similar to the scene inside the ore ship. Stifling their breathing, the two of them held perfectly still as they heard ragged, wheezing breaths echo past them from around the corner.

The shadow of what had once been a man, its spine bent and doubled like no human's should be, was thrown against the far wall by the meager remaining light. Occupied with its task, the shape paid little attention to its surroundings as they heard the screeching protest of bending metal paneling before the figure began retching wetly. An unintentional shift rustled the fabric of Ichigo's flightsuit, the sound clear in the still air of the station. Gurgling low in its throat, a sound more animal than human, the Hollow's shadow jerked up as it peered about, searching for the source. It hissed and flexed its clawed hands into the grating before turning and lunging down an adjacent corridor.

"I don't understand," Ichigo said quietly as it skittered away. "They weren't waiting for us at the airlock, they're not even really hunting us, but it seems liked they'd attack if given the chance."

"They weren't expecting us to get back aboard the station," Rukia pointed out.

"I've been watching them through the monitors, they're all focused on working on something together," Lirin whispered, "They're... doing something to the station."

"Yeah, but what?" Kon asked as Ichigo and Rukia leaned around the corner, unable to keep from checking it was gone.

"Nothing good," Ichigo whispered, glimpsing the area where the figure had been. The floor and grating had been pried open, affording access to the system conduits and service relays within.

"Let's not worry about that now," Rukia said, setting a trembling hand against the wall and feeling a little unsteady. "Medical bay is gutted, right? Nothing left?"

"Yeah," Ichigo said, pressing a hand against his bleeding side. Rukia had leaned against the wall and was unsealing the torn sleeve from the shoulder of her flightsuit. She sucked her lip between her teeth as she gingerly peeled it away from her sliced arm. Blood had stained her alabaster skin and was smeared down the entire length of her arm. Ichigo glanced from her arm up to her face, coated with a light sheen of perspiration. She was normally pale, but not this pale. "Rukia, if we don't slow the bleeding from your arm you're going to go into shock."

Rukia nodded but stopped immediately, the motion making her nauseous. "There's medical supplies on the interceptor," she said before realizing, "At the auxiliary airlock, across the station from the computer bay."

"We can tie that off to close the wounds until we can get back to the ship. Think you can make it to the station's computer bay and command deck?" Ichigo asked, glancing at her arm. "We should be able to close the blastdoors on the station but leave a path from there to the auxiliary airlocks."

"That won't keep me from going into shock though, but don't worry, I'll be fine," Rukia replied, trying to inject a confidence into her voice she didn't necessarily feel. She pulled open a small padded compartment on her weapon harness and withdrew one of a few small metal cylinders. She rolled it in her fingers, 'Danger - Colonial Navy Use Only' written down the side. Breaking off the caps at each end, she shook it as quickly as she could before making the mistake of meeting Ichigo's eyes.

Conflicting emotions warred within him, his eyes shifting between the cylinder in her hand and her weary blue-violet eyes. "Stims?" was all he asked, his brow creasing.

"We don't have a lot of options. It'll buy me some time until we get back to the ship," Rukia argued halfheartedly, looking down at the cold metal cylinder in her hand. "We need to get to the computer bay, from there Lirin and Kon will have full control over the station and then we can deal with the situation." She hated using stims, but if it kept her head clear and her blood oxygenated, at least she wouldn't be a liability to Ichigo. Before she could talk herself out of it and before Ichigo could stop her, she lifted the tip to her jugular vein and pushed the plunger down with her thumb. In a moment the cylinder was empty, the only sound being a puff of compressed gas.

"Just work on controlling your breathing," Ichigo said, annoyed and frustrated with her. He snatched the sleeve she had removed from her flightsuit and folded it over into a long strip. "Shock will make you want to hyperventilate, so will the stims." He watched her nod shakily as she turned her wounded arm towards him. Tying the sleeve tightly into a makeshift bandage across her sliced arm, he heard Lirin gasp out an uncharacteristic string of scorching expletives as Rukia only blew out a calming breath.

Kon blew a low whistle as Rukia let the stim cylinder fall from her fingers as she worked the muscles of her neck, tilting her head from side to side. "She is the real deal man, not many can take a stim like that."

"Let's get going," Rukia said, pushing herself off the wall. "Lirin, what's the safest way back to your computer bay?"

"Uh, the main corridors are all occupied by whatever these things are," Lirin said, a quiver of pain in her voice. "They're tearing up the paneling and doing... something. The secondary shafts from engineering are still clear though. They lead right past the computer bay and onto the command deck."

Trying to ignore the cold chill of the stimpack as it spread through her veins and fighting against the hot searing pain in her arm, Rukia hefted one of her pistols in her good hand and led the way towards main engineering. By the time they reached the end of the hall the pain in her arm had gone from nauseating to negligible and the gun in her hand no longer felt like fifty kilograms. Fatigue, hunger and lightheadedness were now only dismissible inconveniences. She knew it was all a dangerous lie, she found it hard to care as her blood began to sing.

Beyond the crew quarters was the small, almost nondescript blastdoor leading into the station's reactor and power plant control levels. From there, access paths shot out in each direction down the arms of the station allowing maintenance crews the ability to reach various buried conduits and relays which were otherwise impossible to get to. The access paths were poorly lit, stiflingly cramped, and difficult to navigate even while uninjured. They were also the best way to get to the command deck without being detected. Bending down, Ichigo and Rukia looked into the open hatch to the service access path, then to each other before making their way inside the low, narrow crawl space.

"This reminds me of crawling around the _Masaki's_ engine compartment," Ichigo muttered to himself as the two of them made their way along the crawl space. Upon reaching a service juncture and turning to head down the next crawlway, Ichigo noticed with some trepidation that it ran down the small gap between the inner and outer hulls. "Except for the killer freak human-Hollows, the AI inside my head and cuts across my side."

"Broken rib too, probably," Rukia whispered back just as Ichigo bumped his side and winced in pain.

"Look on the bright side," Kon replied, "The only thing between you and the vastness of space is about four inches of antique bulkhead."

The four of them quieted immediately as they heard that same strange clawing, scrabbling noise that had echoed across the ore ship. Awkwardly crouched and halfway between reaches, Ichigo's side burned with a fresh wave of pain but he dared not move a muscle. The noise was coming from somewhere above them and Ichigo strained his ears, peering up through the narrow gap in the bulkheads and conduits overhead, trying to determine what it could be.

He felt a small hand on his arm and looked over to see Rukia, her eyes searching his for any answers. He shook his head uncertainly, doing his best not to rustle the fabric of his clothing. The noise died away and they held still a few moments longer before slowly resuming their way, taking renewed care to be as silent they could. Watching Rukia ease down along the crawlspace, the two of them sandwiched between the thick bulkheads on either side and the service utility conduits snaking low overhead, Ichigo frowned. The jitters in her fingers belied the outward calm she was trying to hold, the stim she had taken to keep her body from going into severe shock was going to start pushing her heart too hard soon.

Pain flared across his side once more as he made his way along, his fingers slipping from their hold and turning his step into more of a lurch. Gritting his teeth, he pressed onward. Lifting his head he could see Rukia outpacing him and under normal circumstances he would have thoroughly enjoyed the view, but presently his mind kept returning to the image of the stimpack against her neck. He sighed. They'd deal with the ramifications later.

"Ichigo," Kon whispered over their private channel, "I've been thinking." Ichigo didn't bother making a snarky comment, instead choosing to grunt an acknowledgement as he shuffled along behind Rukia. "Tell me what you know about these Hollow things."

"Uh, I don't know much. Rukia is really the expert here."

"You must know something."

"Well, they're normally big, spaceship sized things, covered in sort of a silvery metal, but with muscles underneath instead of regular spaceship parts, and they use energy weapons," Ichigo said after searching the air above him for details to give Kon. "They tear apart and consume human spaceships, presumably for the raw materials. Rukia says they're bio-mechanical, whatever that means."

"And the ones on the ore ship and my station are new, right? Never seen them before?" Kon continued. Ichigo nodded as he had the distinct impression Kon was pacing and rubbing his chin. "So these ones look basically like regular people?"

"I think they used to be regular people, but now a Hollow is somehow controlling them. They're all wearing ore ship crew uniforms or mining crew suits."

"So like, personality supplantation."

"That sounds familiar," Ichigo mumbled, this time it was he who scratched his chin.

"It should, it was one of the possible side effects we discussed if Lirin and I were loaded in your neural links for too long."

"Oh yeah, you're right. You think that might be what happened, someone jammed Hollow minds inside these people and then never took them out?"

"I'm still working on the how and why, but yeah, essentially."

"It couldn't be full supplantation though, these Hollows know how to speak our language and stuff," Ichigo pointed out. "And how would they get a Hollow in there in the first place, it isn't like just a segment of an A-I like we're doing."

"There's a storage and processing architecture limit on loading into a neural link for us. Those people had some kind of weird infection or parasite running through their whole bodies, remember? Maybe it's like a bio-mechanical neural link."

"Sounds like a wild guess."

"You come up with a better theory then, smart guy."

Ichigo didn't have a better theory, but Kon's observation had brought up a host of questions that all had unsettling answers. Fisher had said it was the Master who had done this, which obviously meant that the Hollows and he were working together. How had they communicated beforehand? How many Hollows did he have at his disposal? Finally, as far as Ichigo knew, only Kon and Lirin had developed this particular type of sensory transfer, while their actual consciousnesses still ran on their quantum processors. The process of moving an entire consciousness was determined to be next to impossible, but the Master had obviously done it. How? It was Kon who voiced the most disturbing question into their private channel though.

"He said the master had 'cloaked them in the shape of their prey' but you'd only do that to infiltrate a population," he reasoned. Ichigo murmured a reply, prompting Kon to continue. "But there's no way these guys would pass for human, they're still bonding metal to their skin and tissue. They're still acting too much like the spaceships you talked about."

"What's your point, Kon?"

"My point is that these guys seem like a first draft, not a finished project."

Ichigo silently dwelled on that particular detail as they neared their goal. "Why are you thinking about this stuff anyway, Kon?" he eventually asked after squeezing through a particularly narrow passage.

"I gotta do something to keep my mind off the cuts in your side, they hurt like a bitch."

"Uh huh," Ichigo tersely agreed. "Lucky for you once you're loaded back in your cube you won't feel it."

"Yep, just so long as nothing happens to the integrity of the station's power system, I'll be fine." A rumbling shudder creaked and groaned through the station, causing the amber lights through the access path to fuzz and flicker. The two of them paused as a significant silence hung in the air. "Maybe you should hurry up to the computer bay."

They made it up the main shaft of the station to the command module without further incident, though Ichigo could feel his breathing becoming progressively labored. Rukia, it seemed, was his polar opposite. She was moving restlessly even in the cramped space, energized but undirected, her fingers constantly rubbing and clenching the grip of her weapon. The access path stopped in a small service compartment, barely big enough to fit them both, the hatch to the main corridors of the station fixed firmly in front of them.

"This hatch leads to the corridor that runs between the command bridge and the computer bay," Lirin said, her words rushing and tumbling out into their neural links.

"Good, let's go," Rukia said. Without preamble, she swiftly unlatched the fasteners and let the hatch fall outward. Eyes wide, Ichigo's heart leapt to his throat as he expected the hatch to slam into the metal grating, even as Rukia tumbled out after it. Catching it on the tips of her fingers before it could collide with the floor, she set it down gently as she scanned up and down the half-lit corridor. "Clear," she said, weapon instantly back in hand.

"Rukia," Ichigo admonished harshly. He ducked down through the hatch but stopped as he saw the fresh smear of blood across the floor. Getting his feet back under him, Ichigo rose up in the hallway and checked Rukia's bandage. "Dammit Rukia, this thing is fucking soaked. Be more careful or your arm isn't going to close."

"Uh huh," she replied dismissively. She began walking down the corridor towards the computer bay when she felt Ichigo's hand close around her uninjured shoulder, pulling her to the side. She was about to ask what his problem was and tell him off for mothering her about her injury when she heard a limping, dragging kind of sound. The two of them pressing into the shadows, they could hear a figure shuffling around the computer bay around the corner of the blastdoor, soon joined by another from the other computer bay entrance.

"Status?" one croaked, his ragged voice vaguely familiar.

"The humans continue to elude us, but it is only a matter of time. Our objective nears completion, we need not waste any more time here," the other hissed.

"And what of the humans' rock-pusher?"

"Nearly complete, though it will need guidance."

"Let the one the humans called Fisher guide it, the husk is damaged and irreparable, but Fisher will live on. Return to the beast with as many of the brethren as needed. Leave the rest aboard this structure."

"What of the White Moon's armor?"

There was a long pause, Ichigo and Rukia both listening keenly.

"Let it be consumed to feed our newest brother."

Rage, hot and gripping, seized Rukia the moment she heard the Hollow's plan for her precious ship. Blind with fury, she wrested herself away from Ichigo and tore her weapon from its holster, stomping through the blastdoor frame and into the computer bay with murder on her mind.

"The hu-" was all one was able to shout before a trio of staccato barks of shattershot rang out, the rounds catching him in the chest. He spun to the floor of the computer bay with a yelping scream, red blood and dark ichor from the gunshots falling around him.

"Yes, the humans," finished the other, his voice a guttural rumble. Rukia shifted her sights to the speaker but stopped herself from firing, her finger shaking on the trigger. "No," he sneered confidently at her, "I thought not." In his clawed and bleeding hands he held Kon's green processor core cube in front of his chest, the power connector to the station pulled taut between the port and the jagged hole in the wall where it had previously been mounted.

"Put it down," Rukia said, eyes narrowing at the figure clutching Kon's cube. Her entire universe consisted of her target and her weapon, the singing in her blood had narrowed her focus to laser precision.

"No, Little Moon," it said, it's voice bubbling low in its throat. "We know what these are, and you will not harm them." He wrapped his hand around the power tether connecting Kon's cube to the wall. "Lower your weapon, now."

Rukia took a measured step along the side of the computer bay, her weapon remaining leveled as the figure pivoted to keep Kon between them. She could feel her heart thrumming in her chest, adrenalin pushing the song in her ears faster and faster. She swallowed dryly and pushed the cold sensation at the pit of her stomach away. Forcing herself to assess the tactical situation, she drew up her training and sublimated the primal revulsion she felt as she looked at the mangled, warped creature before her. "Put it down and I won't fill you full of holes like I did to your friend there."

The figure laughed, a wicked, grating sound that wrenched its way up his throat before looking to his fallen companion. "Get up, fool. Complete your mission." The figure laying prone on the floor, lifted itself up on its hands and feet, grinned maliciously over its shoulder at Rukia, then loped away through the far blastdoor on all fours. "Without your armor, without the limitless black, you are nothing to us," the figure said, savoring Rukia's stunned expression.

"Oh yeah? You sure about that?" Rukia said, edging another step. It sounded perfectly fine in her head, witty even. However, as she heard the words aloud she realized she may not have wrested control of herself entirely away from the chemicals of the stimpack.

The figure's eyes, coal black with burning yellow irises, flicked from her to the other processor core before it grinned maliciously. "We have scanned the contained ones. They lie dormant. They cannot help you," it said confidently.

Rukia glanced back at the blastdoor where Ichigo had been, finding it curiously empty, before turning back to the Hollow holding Kon's core. "Oh yeah? You sure about that too?" She reached out and laid a thumb across the contact point on the front of Lirin's processor cube. The jolt of contact rippled through her like an electric shock, Lirin's sensory consciousness withdrawing from her mind and fleeing down the network of nerves in her arm. Over in less than a second, Rukia removed her thumb from the pad and used it to cup the grip of her pistol, doing her best to ignore the curious sense of loneliness left in Lirin's wake.

The figure looked intently at Lirin's processor core but it remained just as inert as before. "Did you think you could simply press a button to summon aid, Little Moon? The other human has abandoned you. We will take what we came for and there is nothing you can do to stop us."

"Ichigo has not abandoned me," Rukia snarled. She was going to have to work on her impetuousness, the mix of stimpack and adrenalin were clearly cutting down her ability to control herself. She knew she wasn't able to hold her tongue and now she was loosing control of her temper. The realization was beginning to dawn on her how stupid it was to barge in here without a plan.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet as clanks and groans echoed through the empty halls of the comm station.

"Our brother awakens. Soon our mission will be complete and you, White Moon, will be of no further concern," the Hollow said, pulling the lips of the human face it was controlling into a fierce, mocking grin.

The station shuddered again, far more violently this time. The grin on the Hollow's face faltered somewhat, the floor beneath beginning to judder and quake. Klaxons began ringing in the further reaches of the station, followed by the faint hisses and resounding bangs of blastdoors sliding shut. A light breeze began wafting through the computer bay, accompanied by a high pitched hiss, something imperceptible to anyone not raised in space but immediately recognizable to Rukia. Recognizable and terrifying.

"Hull breach," Rukia whispered, feeling her face go paper white. The words left her lips as the piercing wail of the alarm klaxon blared through the computer bay. The breeze through the room was quickly picking up strength, the hiss of escaping air lowering to a steady drone.

The Hollow across from her knitted his brows in consternation as he glanced to the far blastdoor the other had exited, as if gauging his chances. The light above it flared to brilliance, casting a green glow across the computer bay. The wind blowing through the bay was whipping past them, tugging at their softsuits and blowing their hair into their faces, but still neither moved. The ground bucked beneath their feet as a voice, muffled by the loud, constant rush of air and blaring klaxon, called out a warning over the speaker system.

"EVACUATE - DECOMPRESSION IMMINENT"

The blastdoors on either side of the computer bay creaked and began sliding inexorably down as the metal panels across the floor crumpled like crepe paper. A crack splintered across the middle of the floor and tore open the metal paneling, the ground peeling away as the air rushed past her feet. With an inhuman roar, the Hollow dropped Kon's processor core and sprinted to the green lit blastdoor and the sanctuary on the other side. Sliding beneath the edge of the door, it shot a malicious look back at her as the door crashed shut.

Rukia backed away, eyes wide as the thin crack wrenched itself open with the sound of crumpled metal. She caught a glimpse of pin-pricked blackness through the widening tear, the terror of knowing that absolutely nothing existed between her and the vast nothingness of space spurned her to desperate action. She dove for the other blastdoor but watched it slide shut before she could get there.

"No.. No, NO!" she screamed, pounding her fists futilely against the thick metal door. A shadow passed over the small circular viewport and Rukia quickly banged against it. Moving her hand, she saw Ichigo's face looking back at her. Relief flooded through her and she pushed her wind whipped hair away from her face. Ichigo would open the blastdoor, Ichigo would save her life. She looked through the viewport expecting to see him springing to action.

Ichigo looked from her to the crack in the floor over her shoulder, then back to her. He sighed at her, scowled, then crossed his arms and leaned against the door. Rukia couldn't believe what she was seeing. Ichigo looked... bored.

"Ichigo! ICHIGO!" she screamed, pounding on the door with the butt of her weapon. "OPEN THE DOOR! ICHI-" the roaring sound of rushing air vanished, the sudden change making her instinctively clamp her mouth shut. There was no more atmosphere left in the computer bay. She was going to die of explosive decompression and Ichigo wasn't going to lift a finger to help her. She squeezed her eyes shut and gave one last swing of her weapon at the door, hearing it bang loudly against the metal.

She paused, eyes screwed shut, waiting for the inevitable. Her mind involuntarily spun down the symptoms she knew were only seconds away, if she was lucky she'd meet a quick death from tissue rupture as her body fluids expanded into gas. If not, she'd become disorientated in ten seconds, lose consciousness in thirty and suffocate to death in ninety. Spiraling down this train of thought gave her time to realize she had heard the bang of her weapon against the door. If there was no more air in the room, how had she heard the noise? She cautiously opened one eye and looked around, catching Ichigo's face still in the viewport. His face had gone from bored to slightly amused. More confused by his response, she took a careful sniff. The air was cool, dry, and slightly musty, unchanged from when they had boarded the station in the first place.

Relief and elation flooded through her as she collapsed to the floor of the computer bay, taking in a deep draft of the station's air. Something must have blocked or sealed the breach in the hull, she reasoned, turning around to lean against the side bulkhead. She froze as she looked back at the computer bay, an enormous gaping fissure splitting the floor wide open, directly exposed to the blackness of space.

"Wha- wha-" she mumbled.

Lirin flickered into view next to her, kneeling down at her level. "Neat huh?" She stood up and walked across the floor, the image of the hull breach rippling like water where she stepped.

The blastdoor next to her whirred and slid back up as Ichigo entered. "The floor is a big holo-display panel, remember?"

Rukia, still panicked and shaking, managed to push herself from the ground and promptly flung herself at him. Her thoughts were so jumbled that she didn't know if she should punch him in the face or wrap her arms around him. Before she could decide, she felt herself folded into his arms and immediately slumped against him, letting the tension and fear drain out of her body.

"It was Kon and Lirin's plan to get the Hollows off the station," Ichigo said, lightly rubbing his fingers along her neck.

His words didn't even register in her mind. The only thing she cared about was the wonderful feeling of air flowing deep into her lungs. She fisted her hands into the material of his flightsuit and breathed in, closing her eyes as she detected the scents of black coffee and sweat. His fingers along her neck were playing havoc with her hyper-aware, stimpack augmented senses. The delicious tingling she expected was magnified a hundred fold to the point where she felt immersed in liquid electricity.

Ichigo was happy to hold her there for a long moment but eventually he bent his head down to whisper conspiratorially in her ear. "Not that that doesn't feel good, but we should be getting a move on, dontcha think?"

Rukia noticed her hands, one of which had traveled up and was running her fingers through his spiky hair while the other was smoothing out over his chest. She had pulled him closer, desperate to feel him against her, yearning for even more tactile sensation. Any further and she would've wrapped a leg around him and... and she didn't know what. Her baser instincts were taking over as the song in her blood overpowered her impulse control.

"R-right," she agreed, fighting to regain at least some semblance of control. Distracting herself by looking at the impressive hologram of the floor torn open, she unwrapped herself from around Ichigo and hid her embarrassment under the auspices of moving to get a better look. Despite knowing it was a projected image, she still couldn't help but feel cautious as she moved to the edge to look down into the blackness of space. "Hey," she said, realizing something amiss, "How did you get the air to flow like that?"

Ichigo jerked a hand up at an air circulation vent in the ceiling. "We have control of the air scrubber system, remember?" Kon said over Ichigo's channel. Surprise and anger flashed over Ichigo's face as he wrestled his own arm back under control. "Ichigo and I took care of the blastdoors across the station while you were playing gunslinger, so the way should be clear. Now come on, quit wasting time, my processor core is hanging there by a cord."

For a split second, as Ichigo moved to transfer Kon back to his cube, Lirin's image flickered and crackled with static. The three others all paused a second, looking curiously over towards her as Lirin herself stared down at her body.

"Lirin?" Kon asked, growing concerned.

"Ichigo," Lirin said, her eyes glazing over and an odd buzz filling in behind her voice, "Do not load Kon back into his processor core."

"What? Why not?" Ichigo asked, brows drawing down as he watched Lirin's body fuzz and flicker.

"Now that I'm back in full control of the station systems, I'm running diagnostics but I'm getting strange results and corrupted connections." Lirin's voice was getting more and more distorted. "I'm severing his, and your, network access to the station's wireless system until I can sort this out. Until then, hook Kon's other power conduit to your hardwire link and then unplug it from the station. Get everybody down to your ship and plug his core into that power system, it should be unaffected."

"What about you? If the power system on the station in compromised, you need to get out of here too," Ichigo asked. He didn't like the strange, faraway look on Lirin's face or the unconscious way she had begun brushing at her arms.

"It's nothing I can't handle," she asserted. It was difficult to tell, but Ichigo thought he detected a note of growing panic in the the firmness of her voice. "Many of the Hollows are still on the station, they are overriding the blastdoor protocols and are heading back this direction. Please hurry and return to your ship."

There was a grinding of gears and a squeal of metal from the other blastdoor as it shuddered and began to rise. Lirin spun towards it and it immediately stopped, then slid back down with a crash. Through the viewport in the door the Hollow's bright yellow eyes appeared and it screamed, the inhuman sound muffled by the thick metal. "I cannot keep the doors closed forever. Go, now."

Ichigo finished attaching Kon's power system to the hardwire connector on his palm and tucked the bulky cube beneath his arm before turning back to Lirin. "What are going to do if they get in here?"

"I have a feeling I know why they're here, what they've done to the station. They won't care about me, but you need to take Kon and get out as soon as you can." She turned back to face them, erasing the image of the hull breach in the floor with a wave of her hand.

"I don't underst-"

"You don't need to understand Ichigo, you need to run. I'm going to depressurize the station for real this time, I can feel the ore ship prepping to undock. If I'm fast I can catch at least of few of them before they get away."

"No! We're not leaving here without you," Ichigo swore.

"I'm not giving you a choice," Lirin said sadly, her image continuing to distort and flicker. The warning light in the computer bay flared to life again, flashing bright red across the paneled walls. "That's real this time, I've begun venting the atmosphere across the station. Don't worry about me, just... just go."

"You heard the woman," Rukia said, seizing Ichigo's arm and hauling him towards the other blastdoor and the corridors which would take them back to the _Sode no Shirayuki_. "She's covering our escape, so let's not cheapen her bravery by denying it." Together they bolted from the computer bay, Ichigo throwing one last look over his shoulder.

"I don't get it," Ichigo groused as he ran, shifting Kon's cube beneath his arm. "She fakes a hull breach to get the Hollows panicking, now she's doing it for real? What's with the sudden change?"

"I don't know, let's just keep moving," Rukia said, leading the way through the gloomy corridors. "We can ask her after we grab our helmets and come back for her once it's safe."

The blastdoors had almost all been sealed, red flashing lights and ringing klaxons at each one, leaving only a single path down the long halls. Running through the shadowy corridors until they reached the auxiliary airlock platform, they were both breathing hard and the heavy blastdoor slid firmly shut behind them as soon as they crossed the threshold. Before them, still reassuringly secured, stood the airlock port connected to the interceptor's top hatch. Rukia breathed a sigh of relief but Ichigo turned back to the blastdoor and watched the status light flip to red. The klaxons across the station were getting fainter and fainter as the air was drawn out. Through the small viewport in the door something caught his eye, and with a jolt he realized what had made Lirin so desperate to get them off the station. "Rukia, look."

Barely visible through the viewport, one of the few remaining lights was shining across a thin network of branching fibers that had snaked its way across ceiling in one corner of the corridor. Looking closer, the two of them pressing tightly together to share the small viewport, they watched the paneling beneath the fibers begin to crumble, the metal being eating away and consumed. More fibers were creeping out from the dividers in the walls and from up beneath the grating of the floor.

"Now you kn-kn-know why I did not allow Kon to be reattached-dz-dz-dz to the station network," Lirin said, her buzz-filled voice filling the airlock platform. A camera in the corner whirred as it focused on them. "The Hollows have infecTED the station with the s-s-same type of biological ENtity that is-zzzzzzz-spread across the ore ship."

"Don't worry Lirin, we'll get you out of there," Ichigo promised, swallowing down a shot of raw anxiety.

"Don't worr-eeeee-y about me. So far, the entity is like a rudimentary nervous-zzzzzzz-system. It is clum-zzzzzz-sily trying to synchroniZZZZZE with MY zzzz-sensor interface sySTEm. But we ha-vvvvv-e other prOBLEms-zzzz."

"But you're attached to the station and it's being overrun with a Hollow infection," Rukia said, feeling like she may have made a poor decision in suggesting they leave her behind. "I don't know what could be more problematic than that."

"Please-z-z-z-secure Kon's procESSor core aboard your ship. I hav-v-v-ve slowed the spread of the infection by venTING the oxygen, but I can feel it breaCHIng the water system. The reaL pROblem is the ore ship, it IZZZZZ dangerOUS."

The airlock cycled, the status light above flicking to yellow, before Rukia activated the hatch control and looked back at Ichigo, torn between what they should do.

"Just hang on, we'll grab our helmets and come back to decouple the ore ship. Then we'll figure out how to get you off the station too." Ichigo swung through the hatch and into the zero gravity on the interceptor, Rukia following close behind.

"Ichigo, what the hell is going on out there?" Kon griped into their comm channel, "All my connections are terminated, I won't be able to sense anything until I'm reattached to... you know, some sensors!"

"Just hang on, dammit," Ichigo sniped back, stowing the glossy green cube beneath the seat of his station and mashing the power conduit into an open console socket. He ripped the hardwire off his hand as Kon's main power system came online and he pushed himself back up towards the airlock, grabbing his flightsuit helmet as he went. He arrived at the hatch just in time to see the airlock door to the station seal closed and the status light above flip to red.

"Shit!" Rukia exclaimed, yanking the small hatch closed on the interceptor as well. She turned an incredulous look at Ichigo. "She's decompressing the airlock, she's overriding the mooring controls."

"Lirin, what are you doing? Answer me Goddammit!" Ichigo shouted into their open comm channel.

"I-I-I-Ichigo," came back her response, a sharp edge to her voice despite being heavily processed and digitized. "I can handle the inFECTion, I am a COMbat A-I, but the ore ship, it awakens-zzzzz. You mus-zzz-t desTROy it..." The comm channel crackled and faltered, the connection severed as the station mooring controls released the docking clamps on the interceptor. A series of clunks and hisses shot through the cabin as the service links and supply connectors snapped and disconnected from the station.

"This is crazy, we can't leave Lirin on the station by herself," Ichigo said, "There's no telling how long she can hold out against the spread of that thing."

"Lirin's taken the decision out of our hands," Rukia snapped back at him, frustration and anger seeping unchecked into voice. She couldn't help but feel somehow responsible for Lirin as she spun him around to look him in the face. "We can go back and get her once we've taken care of the ore ship. That is our first priority."

Cursing, Ichigo hauled himself past her, over the tactical station and slid into the pilot's seat, buckling himself in as he wedged Kon's processor core into a more secure position. With a neural command he retracted the service cables, their clunks and hisses as they withdrew back into their housings punctuated his sense of urgency as he set the targeting system and telemetry screen up next to his navigation controls. Rukia managed to get the airlock seal retracted, the plates of armor sliding back into place as Ichigo cycled up the engines, not waiting for her to make it back to her seat.

Jetting away from the station, Ichigo flung the interceptor out into darkness of space before angling back around and coming to bear on the ore ship. It seemed to be crumpling in upon itself, huge cracks and fissures spread across the hull where it buckled and bent inward. The threat assessment system was flashing an alarm and the targeting system was detecting catastrophic atmosphere failure coming from the ore ship. The coils and lengths of fibrous muscle tissue that had spread over the surface of the ore ship was now visible in the broken seams of the ship, pulsing and flexing beneath the cracked plates of metal.

With Rukia leaning over the tactical station, the two of them watched the engines across the rear of the ore ship sputter and then silently blaze to life. The entire ship shuddered in different directions, tearing itself apart as it bent and twisted its hull, stringy red muscle tissue pulling and flexing the hull plates of the ore ship into a huge, horrid facsimile of Hollow vessel. The prow splintered apart, yanking itself open into a huge gaping maw as coils of ropey, claw-tipped tentacles writhed and slithered out, snapping hungrily as it turned towards them.

"We have to keep it away from the station, if it suffers any more damage..." Rukia let her statement hang ominously as she clicked her restraints into place.

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Ichigo said, fingers tightening around the manual controls as he punched the ship into a shallow strafe, keeping the nose pointed at the target. The enormous Hollow, plumes of red light searing from its engine exhausts, sped past the old comm station and came racing towards them.

Rukia brought her weapon systems online, calming focusing on her station as the giant Hollow surged toward them. "It hasn't had time to develop significant weapon systems yet, so I don't imagine-" Rukia started, but cut off as the Hollow stretched out a spindly, oddly jointed appendage. Arching it back, Rukia caught a glimpse of its wickedly barbed tip before it shot forward, flinging the razor sharp metal spur at them.

"Shit," Ichigo said, rolling the interceptor out of the way, the spinning metal projectile flashing past them. "Did you know they could do that?"

"Focus, Ichigo." Rukia danced her fingers across the controls, realigning her targeting systems and working on gaining weapon's lock as three more long appendages uncurled from the ore ship, each reaching back and preparing to fire their payloads of jagged metal.

"Yeah yeah," he replied. Pitching the ship in a sharp arc, Ichigo raced the _Sode no Shirayuki_ along a path he figured would be outside the firing angle of those arms while also working to keep the comm station out of the range of friendly fire. Juking back and forth, he tried to keep their course unpredictable and grew confident as he noticed the massive Hollow couldn't aim properly. Grinning to himself, he eased off on the controls and flipped the ship over, trying to line up a decent angle for Rukia to use. The smile vanished from his face as the Hollow, with surprising speed, flung four more spinning jagged discs at them. Gunning the controls, Ichigo weaved through them with more luck than skill, one of them brushing past them so close that it tripped the particle deflection system with a burst of blue-white static.

"Dammit Ichigo, get back to some kind of attack vector!" Rukia shouted, feverishly working her controls and systems.

"I'm working on it!" he grumbled back. Hesitating, he changed his mind at the last second before banking hard to the side. He spun the ship back up and opened the engines wide, pushing them back into their seats before cutting the thrust and tumbling the ship back over. Stunned, his eyes grew wide as he saw the huge Hollow, its jaws open and tentacles snaking out, directly behind them.

"ICHIGO!" Rukia screamed. Squeezing the firing control, the railguns on either side bloomed into life, sending twin jets of tracer fire across the front of the Hollow. Rukia felt the sudden surge of inertia as he punched the engines back to full power, the control surfaces tilting hard as he tried to angle them away from the Hollow. In horrible, crystalline clarity, Rukia could see it wasn't going to be enough, and one of the jagged appendages was already swinging down at them like a gigantic barbed metal scorpion. With no time to call out a warning, the pointed metal tip sliced into their lateral wing, shearing through the armored plating and digging deep into the support framework. The transition from near utter silence to deafening impact and rending metal thundered through the cabin.

A klaxon blared within her helmet as the ship was wrenched forcefully to the side, their consoles and panels flashing red as a damage report streamed across the displays at Rukia's station. Thrown hard against her restraints, they cut deep into her shoulders and hips while colored lights flashed before her eyes. Stunned into silence, Rukia blinked as the motion came to a sudden, jarring stop. Raising her head she could see the gigantic shape of the Hollow through the canopy as it lifted another of its wicked limbs to strike, taking careful aim at center of her beloved ship.

Her reverie was broken as she heard Ichigo cycle up the engines, a piercing whine beginning to shriek through the cabin. Before she could speak, she saw him push one thruster to full while yanking the other into full reverse, tearing the _Sode no Shirayuki_ free from the impaling metal barb but spinning them wildly out of control. Her wounded arm throbbing as she was thrown into her restraints again, she managed to reach over and pull herself back to upright as Ichigo shaved their angular momentum into a wide curve, taking them out far from the savage Hollow.

Coming about, they could see the hulking form of the Hollow lit from behind by the tracking lights from the station, its silhouette blotting out the stars beyond. Advancing slowly, almost lazily, like a confident predator stalking wounded and exhausted prey, it angled back in their direction. The original ore ship was almost unidentifiable now, so much of its structure had been bent and shifted, until nearly every line of the immense Hollow was angular and vicious. Black, ichorus fluid was oozing from a line of bright puncture wounds across its thick metal plates, forming into wobbly spheres before gently floating away. If Rukia had managed to do any real damage with her burst of railgun fire, the Hollow didn't show it.

Ichigo took the opportunity to glance out at their shredded lateral winglet and frown, a bead of sweat slipping down his face. The Hollow was fast and deceptively agile, its ability to hurl spinning discs of jagged metal with uncanny accuracy was something he hadn't taken into account. He had made the mistake of assuming that just because it was big meant it was also dumb and lumbering, and the two of them were paying for his arrogance.

"It's preparing to fire again," Rukia warned, seeing the Hollow arch back its barbed appendages, reloaded with more torn off hunks of jagged plating.

"Starboard forward control surfaces are shot, we're down to seventy percent maneuverability." Ichigo could hear the uncertainty creeping into his voice. Try as he might to deny it, his mind kept returning to a very dire outcome.

"Ichigo," Rukia said, studying the back of Ichigo's helmet.

"Look, I-"

"You think I don't know what you're doing?," Rukia said, her voice filling with ice, "I may be on stims right now, but that doesn't exactly stop me from seeing that you're flying is off. You're ignoring angles and maneuvers because you're worried about getting the station caught in the crossfire. You need to get your head together, now."

Ichigo blew a breath out in a huff, fixing his eyes upon the Hollow as it came closer. She was right. He was too distracted with trying to cover the comm station and themselves, and it was making him sloppy and leave openings in their defenses. His fingers loosened around the controls as he eased back in the chair, clearing his mind and letting the minor vibrations and pressures from the control system flow through his hands and feet, making the ship an extension of his body.

"You want to make sure we all get out of this alive? Then fly better. You want to get Lirin off that station before its taken over by that Hollow infection? Then fly better. You want to protect the people of this system from these fucking _things?_ Then fly _better._ Stop doubting yourself, Goddammit, now get me an attack vector."

She kept her voice firm, even as D. R. Linker's face flashed through her mind, his chin scraping along the barrel of her weapon as he fell the deck of the ore ship. During her time in the navy she had had several confirmed kills, both from her interceptor and small arms skirmishes, but it had been a long while since she had delivered a fatal shot in such cold blood. She was going to need to take her own advice.

Ichigo watched the Hollow approaching them with fresh eyes, the pain across his side ebbing away as he was able to narrow his focus. "You know what Rukia?" he smirked, "You talk too much." He punched the throttle, opening the engines and sending the ship into a screaming dive aimed right at the massive Hollow.

A line of glowing sparks streamed from the torn winglet out the side of the cockpit canopy as Ichigo adjusted the nose of the ship dead on with the Hollow. He heard the rapid whirs of the front facing weapon bays locking their targets as Rukia sighted the ship in the targeting display.

"Does this mean you have a plan?" she asked, one of her hands spinning the hologram model of the Hollow ship above her display, the other isolating possible structural weaknesses they could exploit.

"Nope," he answered, shaving their angle as the huge ship came to bear on them, raising its projectile launchers and readying to fire. "But I have an objective."

"What's that?"

"To win." With the Hollow quickly looming in the canopy, its jaws opened wide as looping coils of shining metal writhed out to meet them. Ichigo tipped the nose down and rolled the ship, the tear in the winglet flaring brightly as it tried to adjust its control surface, putting them in line to slide beneath the bulk of the Hollow. The Hollow changed course, keeping its prow aligned with the interceptor's trajectory while bringing the spear-tipped launcher arms along its lower half down and wide, ready to slice the ship in half if it managed to slip past its maw.

"Ichigo..." Rukia said, watching the Hollow's enormous bulk filling the canopy, all razor sharp blades of jagged metal and grasping, tearing, claw-tipped tentacles.

"Hang on," Ichigo warned, punching the braking thrusters to full as he spun the engine exhaust control planes to full reverse. Yanked suddenly backwards, the nose of the interceptor brushed within meters of the Hollow's hull as it skipped over the top of it, the snaking tentacles pausing in surprise at the abrupt change in direction before reaching out to snap at them. His gamble had paid off though, they hurtled down the top of the transformed ore ship and out of range of the tentacles before they could grab hold.

Rukia, a deep thrill of victory racing through her, thrust her hands into the hologram overlay of the targeting display and spread her fingers, splitting the weapon system's focus point into two directions and activating the gatling railgun controls. Aiming with each hand at different targets, she let loose a continuous stream of gunfire at the base of each launcher arm as they slid by, Ichigo tumbling the ship over as they passed to keep them sighted. The heavy drone of the forward railguns vibrated through the ship, the spinning barrels spitting out a barrage of bright yellow tracer fire that punched through the plating around the launchers, biting deep into the muscle tissue beneath. By the time she released the firing control both the launcher arms were nearly severed from the main body of the ore ship.

The comm screen flickered to life beside the both of them, a video feed quickly resolving into focus. "You must think you're pretty clever, don't you?" a voice rumbled out from the comm system.

Each of them glanced at the comm screen and froze, the image of Fisher's half-obscured face glowering at them from the glowing display. He moved back further and even in the dim light of the ore ship's nearly unrecognizable interior, the two of them realized he wasn't sitting at a console, he was suspended from the ceiling by dozens of fleshy umbilical cords. In the darkness behind him they could make out other human shapes, each one hanging limply from similar cords and cables.

"I believe you humans call this a crew, do you like my crew?" he laughed, waving a wicked hand behind him. "Their minds have been devoured to bring this, the greatest of our kind to life, all under my control, and I will use this form to crush your puny armor and take what we-"

"Shut _up_ ," Ichigo said, muting the comm channel. "'Greatest of his kind'? Yeah right, it's just big, that's all."

"Let's be honest, size helps," Rukia mumbled without thinking as she flicked her fingers through her weapon catalog, quickly shifting current target acquisition to larger ordinance. "I meant, uh," she stumbled, indicating her display systems.

Ichigo glanced over his shoulder, giving her an odd look from the corner of his helmet visor. "We won't have a lot of time at this range. You think you can take out the engines from this close?"

"Right, yeah, sorry," Rukia said, trying to rein in her stimpack-fueled mind as it continued to wander, _Not that size is an issue you should worry about._ "Just need to split open a hole and hammer it as hard as we can." _Oh God, did I just say that?_ It was obvious the railguns didn't have enough power to rip through a wide enough section of armor for her missiles to burn deeper into the ship, not enough to incapacitate it anyway. _A deep burning, I can relate._ "Bringing the main cannon online, I'll need a few seconds to load the armor piercing shells." The heavy thunk from beneath their feet and blinking notice in her display told her the ventral bay doors had retracted and the _Sode no Shirayuki's_ heavy assault cannon had been deployed. _It's the thickest, longest, most powerful thing on this ship, how am I supposed to concentrate with that picture in my mind?_

"The cannon is fixed forward, right?" Ichigo asked, checking the weapon status display at his elbow as he kept the ship in close to the Hollow with quick, sure motions of his hands and feet. "Let me know position, angle and distance you need for full penetration."

 _Oh God, did he just say that?_ Rukia closed her eyes and tried to moisten her suddenly dry mouth. _No, no, no_ , she tried to tell herself. Unable to stop herself, a fusion of the dream she had when she first met him and the memory of what she had seen and felt while naked together on Junrinan Two began to play behind her eyes. His choice of words were vividly reinterpreted in hundreds of sinuous and imaginative ways by her mental actors as the stimpack chemicals rushing through her bloodstream sharpened her senses and turbo-charged her body's reactions.

"Did you say something?"

Snapping back to reality, Rukia pulled her tongue back behind her moistened lips and cleared her throat. Silently relieved that her station was set up behind Ichigo's, she was spared from having to explain exactly why she had to force her wandering hands away from the inside of her thighs as she forced her wandering mind back onto the very real situation at hand. She flicked her eyes down to the status display for the cannon; 'Hakuren Mk II' showing as armed and ready. "Ichigo, we are weapons hot-watch the range!" she shouted, catching sight of the Hollow ore ship suddenly surging upwards at them.

The back of the ore ship split open as the huge engines driving it reoriented downwards, heaving the ship in the opposite direction. Unprepared for such a maneuver, Ichigo didn't bother trying to engage directional thrusters or shift the flight surfaces to nose up the interceptor, he just activated a single command and gripped the controls tightly. "Brace!"

The rear of the ore ship slammed hard into the bottom of the interceptor, tossing the small ship out far above the huge Hollow, tumbling it end over end. The sudden and severe shift in speed and direction forced the inertial dampeners into emergency override, locking them into their seats until it could compensate. Groaning from the sudden stress against their injuries, they could do little more than grit their teeth against the pain and vertigo before they leveled off, Ichigo steering the ship through neural link alone.

"We're not smeared against the top of the ore ship?" Rukia puzzled, out of breath as they came about, their target now far below them.

"Landing struts at the last second," Ichigo said by way of explanation. "Absorbed some of the shock but..." He sighed as he glanced at the damage report display, seeing the landing gear at 14%.

"That was a pretty smart move," Kon said over the comm system.

"Thanks, Kon?" Ichigo replied, confused.

"Yeah, I've uplinked to the ship's computer system," he said, "This is some sexy hardware you've got here baby."

"Uh, thanks?" Rukia replied, working on reacquiring target lock.

"Which is why it's such a shame you leave her in Ichigo's clumsy hands, look he's already got the starboard winglet practically sheared off," he started spouting, "This sweet little number has obviously never known the touch of an A-I and I'm tellin' you the things I could do to her-"

"Kon, I swear, if you even lay one lecherous function call into any of my ship's memory banks I will personally reformat you, block by block."

"Simmer down there sister, no need to get all worked up," he soothed, "I can see you two are busy."

"Speaking of," Ichigo said, watching the ore ship as it righted its engine configuration and ignited them again, greasy black smoke pouring from its rear exhausts. He drummed his fingers on the control systems before punching the throttle and arcing them high over the top of the ore ship, keeping them out of firing range of the two remaining projectile launchers.

"We've got time, we just need to disable the engines. It hasn't developed a more sophisticated weapon system so-" Rukia halted as a bright beam of yellow light sliced through the darkness of space, tracking wildly around as it tried aiming in their direction. The beam was raw and nearly uncontrolled, flickering around the wavelengths of yellow before it sputtered and died. Peering down through the canopy, Rukia could see several heavy plates had shifted along the top of the Hollow and a turret had been hastily built... no, hastily grown. Even now the biomechanical process continued to work at impressive speed, unfolding upon and augmenting the skeleton of the turret until she experienced a harsh realization. The bore of the energy weapon spun in their direction, but it was no turret. It was a cannon.

"You were saying?" Ichigo called out, zipping the ship around in a weaving, unpredictable route as he tried to get back in close to the ore ship.

"Impossible," Rukia said, unwilling to believe what she had just seen, "This rate of weapon generation is unprecedented."

"Doesn't look it's just weapon generation," Ichigo said, zooming in one of the targeting displays. The torn and bullet-riddled plating at the base of the launcher arms was repairing itself as they watched, shining molded silver replacing the old, stained gray.

Meanwhile, Kon shifted his attention from watching the two humans fighting the big alien back to the communication laser he had quietly secured. Aiming it at the comm station's main receiver, he sent a comm channel request, carefully configured to match the ad hoc connection properties he and Lirin had developed over the years. He was hoping she'd be able to spot it amid the hundred of signals the dish picked up every second, and was somewhat surprised as the connection authenticated almost immediately. "Lirin? You still okay?"

"Kon?" she said back. "I'm glad you made it to their ship, what a relief."

"Yeah, you'll have to forgive the audio channel connection, I don't technically have permission to be using the comm equipment here."

"I can see the fight, do Ichigo and Rukia have a plan to stop that thing?"

"They seem to be putting their faith in bigger and bigger guns, it doesn't look like it's going well for them." Kon brought up the nose camera system and watched as Rukia fired the assault cannon, a searing flash of light blinding the camera lens for a second, followed by a matching flash of light as the superheated shell impacted against the hull of the Hollow. Kon spun several of his subroutines into recursive loops, the equivalent of drumming his fingers, as the light cleared to show a decent sized cratered hole in the plating of the ore ship, only to have it smoothed over by newer, silver plating.

"Kon," Lirin said, a note of trepidation in her voice, "It doesn't look like it's going well for me either."

"What are you talking about? I thought you had the station under control?"

"The infection is spreading faster than I can contain it," she admitted. "It has synchronized with nearly all my sensor systems and is mounting an offensive to breach my core safeguards."

"What? Why didn't you tell us? Holy shit Lirin," Kon said, immediately pulling up different systems of the ship, masking his connections as extensions of Ichigo's neural link.

"It's alright Kon, I have an idea," Lirin replied quietly.

"Well you can forget it," Kon muttered, "Ichigo and Rukia need to stop dicking around with that thing and redock with the station." He winced as a blazing line of yellow light lashed against the armor of the interceptor, leaving an ugly black scar on the pristine white paneling. "Wait a sec, why is the infection trying to get past your defense mechanisms anyway? You said it was just a simple nervous system."

"Didn't you notice when they said the ore ship would need guidance? They called it a beast even. The infection isn't really a disease, it's a spore. It grows the basic systems of Hollow biomechanics, consuming the resources available to feed itself."

"Well, Ichigo said they were space based organisms so I suppose that'd be one way to reproduce. How boring."

"Focus Kon, this spore has been altered by someone else, probably genetically. I accidentally touched part of it, left a corner of my quantum state outside the safeguards as I was trying to keep the blastdoors down. It... enveloped me, slid over my consciousness and socketed into my neural signature before I knew what happened. It... turned against me, so I severed that portion as quickly as I could. It was all hunger and rage, a furious anger and blinding pain unlike anything I've ever felt. There's no way something like this could occur naturally."

"What are you saying Lirin?"

"I'm saying this spore was designed to need a mind to drive it. It's the opposite of those human-Hollows on the station, they're Hollow minds in human bodies. This spore creates a Hollow body but it still needs a mind, be it another Hollow like Fisher, possibly a human like Ichigo or Rukia, or..."

"Or an A-I, like us," Kon finished, dread beginning to seep up through his emotional matrix operators. "Lirin, how long until it cracks your core defense systems?"

"Kon," she said gently. "My external systems were corrupted almost immediately, the infection had consumed every radial processing node across the station. I've been on borrowed time since my image first flickered in the computer bay."

"No, I won't let this happen," Kon said, denying the futility in Lirin's voice. "There has to be something I can do."

"There is," she said softly as Kon felt the connections he had made to the _Sode no Shirayuki's_ navigation and weapons system seize suddenly, their control interfaces redirected to Lirin's encrypted piggyback signal.

"Oh shit," he said into the suddenly terminated comm channel. Kon quickly opened the cabin speaker system to hear Rukia and Ichigo yelling back and forth.

"The armor is repairing too fast, there's no way to punch through it unless we can bombard the same area over and over," Rukia said crossly, her fingers flicking across her controls, her thin eyebrows set at a frustrated angle.

"I'm on it, I'm on it!" he yelled back. "But if we stay in close we can avoid his ranged weapons. Either way, he's not making it easy." The transformed ore ship pitched and rolled with impressive speed, its directional thrusters firing across the surface at random intervals, Fisher doing his best to shake them off and get them back at range. To his credit, Ichigo slid the interceptor over the skin of the bucking ship, tucking out of the way of the reach of the undamaged launcher arms while speeding around too fast for the beam cannon to track.

Rukia cycled through available targets, activating her missile launch tubes as they arced over an area she had just shredded with railgun and cannon fire barely fifteen seconds previously. She bracketed the target in the reticle and fumed, pulling the firing control anyway and spiraling out a salvo of missiles at the unblemished silver armored plating now covering the section. "This is fucking pointless!"

"Uh, hey guys?" Kon said into the cabin.

"Listen, we can just-" Ichigo began.

"Hey! Ichigo and Rukia?"

"What is it Kon?" Ichigo snapped, rolling the ship around a brilliant beam of yellow while Rukia opened up with another strafing burst of railgun fire.

"You guys are doing great, really. Top notch flying and shooting and stuff, but there's something you guys should know." The sound of the engines and railguns through the cabin suddenly ceased, the weapons all quickly sliding back into their housings as the engines spun down to zero output.

"What the hell?" Ichigo said, slightly panicked. "Controls aren't responding, we're dead in the vacuum."

"Weapon systems are offline," Rukia said, hammering her fists onto her displays, "All controls are locked."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Kon! What the hell is going on?" Ichigo shouted.

"Fisher is taking a bead on us, we need to move, now!" Rukia said, impotently watching the targeting display as the beam cannon swiveled in their direction.

The engines surged to life, throwing them back into their seats as the thruster was engaged to full burn. The ship spun about and raced away from the giant Hollow, angling back towards the comm station.

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked, watching as they moved out of weapons range.

"It's not me, I'm not driving the ship," he said, releasing the useless manual controls and trying every command he had in his neural link.

"Then who?"

"It's me, Lirin," she said into the cabin, her voice sounding far away and scratchy. "I'm sorry I had to do this. I've taken over the ship through an encrypted channel. I have no doubt that if Kon had enough time he could defeat the encryption, but there just isn't any."

"Lirin? What are you doing?" Ichigo asked as the ship came to full stop on the far side, putting the station between them and Fisher.

"Fisher is coming about, we'll be back within weapons range in six seconds," Rukia warned.

"Kon

has the data you need. We've parsed the information several times, you two need to know this is bigger than both of you initially believed. I'm sorry."

'Warning' flashed their consoles 'Jump Drive Activated'.

"She's overridden the proximity protocol," Ichigo said desperately. "Lirin! You can't do this!" He looked over his shoulder as he heard a loud series of whirring motors, the re-entry heat shields deploying and sliding into position across the rear of the ship. The trailing edge of the main wings and fins all levered open, heavy blast shields rotating out and locking into place.

On the station, Lirin's body materialized upon the display panel set into the floor of her private room. She looked around at the veins of creeping tissue branching out across the walls and unraveling over the floor before turning to face the two portraits lit by the warm glow from their small, candle-like lights. She clasped her hands to her chest and faced the viewport between the portraits of her friends, staring out into the starry night.

"Fisher is coming up behind the station, he's going to use it as cover until he's right up on us," Rukia said, watching the display screens. "Ichigo, do something, deactivate the jump drive!"

"I can't! The fission primer has been activated and Lirin won't release the console lockout. Kon, tell me you can do something, anything!"

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening," Kon muttered, fumbling wildly through the interwoven strands of Lirin's encryption routine, searching for some kind of key or anchor.

'Commencing Jump Drive Ignition' A dull thump echoed thunderously through the cabin as a small, innocuous device drifted from a housing at the rear of the ship.

"You cannot save everyone, Ichigo," Lirin said, closing her eyes as an odd serenity filtered through her emotional matrix. She materialized the image of an unlit candle similar to the ones below Noba and Kurodo into her hands. "So I will save you."

'5'

"Ichigo!" Kon yelled, "Spectroscope says the atmosphere inside the station's been flooded to seventy five percent hydrogen."

'4'

"Fissionable deployed," Ichigo said quietly.

'3'

"Still time for remote disarm," Rukia added mutely.

'2'

The massive Hollow ship slid around the side of the station, its terrifying maw gaped wide as it aimed its cannon and pulled back its launchers, preparing to fire.

'1'

Lirin released control lockouts but activated the interceptor's emergency inertial dampener restraints, pinning them to their seats. She opened her eyes and smiled, lighting the candle in her hands. "Ichigo," she said softly into the faltering comm channel, "I've always lov-"

'Jump Drive Engaged' The fission bomb ejected behind the _Sode no Shirayuki_ silently sparked into a tiny dot of pure white light. Blindingly bright, it lasted only fractions of a second before erupting into a sphere of nuclear fury, hurling the tiny interceptor away as it obliterated the comm relay station.

* * *

"Ut iudicat iustum vindictam malorum." He slid his arms reverently through the immaculate white uniform, the garment tailored to a perfect fit across his thin shoulders and narrow frame.

"Vibrabit gladium suum arcus inflexus paratus." With care, he affixed the badge of his station in place, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles before adjusting the fit of his gloves.

"Nomine tuo sim instrumentum vindicando." Into the holster hanging below his shoulder he slid a long barreled pistol, unremarkable save for the curious crest or symbol etched into the bottom of the magazine. Into another, thinner holster at his hip, he secured short, blunt tipped device.

"Tu sanctum ordinamus causa." Facing the starry night of space on the other side of the viewport in the room, he set a white metal visor in place over his eyes before touching his forehead, his chest and each shoulder. "In nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti."

Watching all this, the man at the door could not help but feel he had intruded upon something solemn and private. Unsure if he should wait at the threshold or continue inside, he was frozen as light from the corridor spilled around him into the gloom of the cabin.

"Raise your head, Lieutenant Kira," the man said, turning his visor towards the man paused at the door to his room. "And speak."

"The captain has requested your presence on the bridge, Arbiter," Kira said, looking up at the man. The Arbiter inclined his head slightly before wordlessly following him into the corridors towards the bridge. Kira noticed that the few crew members they encountered quieted immediately in their presence while standing as close to the walls as possible, shooting furtive, fearful glances at the nondescript device hanging at the Arbiter's side. The captain had cautioned him against this type of behavior, but it appeared not to faze the Arbiter in the least as the two of them crested the entry landing and stepped onto the bridge.

"Have we arrived?" began the Arbiter, walking purposefully onto the bridge and addressing the captain directly.

"My my, we are pretty eager to be moving this along," replied the captain, unruffled by the Arbiter's imperious tone of voice. "No time to chat? Tell me, how are you enjoying your stay aboard the _Longinus_? Quite different, I would assume, from the Ministry of Information Control, isn't it Arbiter Tousen?"

The Arbiter took a steadying breath. If association with the colonial navy was what it was going to take to complete his mission, then he would endure it, he told himself. "Captain Ichimaru," he addressed him, watching the silver haired man smile disarmingly and recline in his command chair. "I was under the impression that you had requested my presence here on the bridge."

"I just wanted you to know that we have arrived at the coordinates," Ichimaru said, pointing a long, slender finger out the front viewport. "But as you can see, well maybe you can't..."

Kira blanched at the flippant tone his captain took with the Arbiter, his blond eyebrows and hair the only color left on his face. His fingers flicking rapidly over the control panels, he still managed to bring up a summary of what they had found into an overlay of the main screen.

"The station..." the Arbiter gaped before quickly composing himself.

"We have reason to believe he managed to escape before the relay station was destroyed," Ichimaru interjected.

"Then proceed with the pursuit," the Arbiter said immediately.

"Well see, that's the problem. Seems they used the jump drive to make their getaway an' blow up the station at the same time." He made a 'poof' gesture, followed by a shrug and that uncaring, nonchalant smile. "There's another exhaust trail, but it ain't from the ship we're looking for."

Kira could see the Arbiter tightening his fists within his gloves, a glossy black against his dusky skin. "Set course to follow the other trail, perhaps they'd have information on where the target is likely to go."

"I'll tell my Commander this mission may take a bit longer than expected then," Ichimaru said, standing from his captain's chair and heading towards an exit. "That is really an exquisite sidearm, Arbiter Tousen," he said, noticing the weapon hanging in the shoulder rig.

The Arbiter looked askance at Captain Ichimaru, one eyebrow arching imperceptibly.

"Not really mah'style though. Personally, my favorite weapon has always been..." he said, patting the weapon holster hanging gunslinger style, low on his hip. "...A revolver."


	20. Fusion

In terms of technology level, the basic concept behind nuclear pulse assisted acceleration, or a jump drive, is deceptively simple. Throw a thermonuclear bomb out the back of your spaceship, hold up a thick blast shield, and ride the leading edge of the plasma shockwave out into space. While conventional engine-thruster configurations have advanced to the point of making interplanetary travel not only feasible but trivial, the fact remains that accelerating a ship to cruising speed requires both time and energy factored by mass. Because jump drives have such a high specific impulse, the colonial navy retains their use as a quick and dirty way to attain high velocity in a short amount of time.

There are, however, a number of prices to be paid upon the use of a ship's jump drive. Firstly, they are notoriously inaccurate even at short distances. You won't know exactly where you're going but you will get there fast. Secondly, the blast shields protecting the craft from the explosion must be jettisoned due to radiation, precluding the use of the jump drive again until new blast shields are installed. Thirdly, even under full inertial dampening with emergency restraints activated, the act of accelerating from a dead stop to several thousand miles per second in a short amount of time is very, very painful.

It was this last point that Ichigo was becoming acutely familiar with as a strained groan escaped his lips, the air forced out of his lungs as he felt himself pressed hard into the contoured molding of his station chair. Teeth clenched, hands flattened against the cushioned armpads, his entire body was in agony as he felt himself crushed under his own weight. A series of colored lights danced and flashed in his vision as he struggled to summon the strength to breathe, let alone remain conscious.

The pressure took four seconds, each one feeling like an eternity, in order to begin to abate. He wrenched in a breath of air as the force began to lessen, blinking away the colored lights and trying to focus his eyes on something around him. Darkness greeted him, pure and impenetrable. _Shit! I've gone blind._ The helmet visor gradually shifted from opaque to clear, the automatic polarization protecting his eyesight from the jump drive blast. _Whew! I'm not blind._ Evening out their velocity with a few neural commands, he felt the emergency restraints disengage and his seat gradually move back to normal operating position.

His stomach churning from more than just rapid acceleration, Ichigo slid the manual control systems away as he brought up the traditional nav display and ship monitors. Seeing internal pressure had remained intact, he removed his helmet quickly to let the cool air clear his head and settle his stomach. Catching sight of their present velocity, then looking again to make sure he wasn't imagining things, he began rubbing his head in disbelief as he flicked through the ship's damage report, his torn side beginning to ache anew.

"Ugh," he heard from behind him. He turned to see Rukia struggle to unseal and remove her helmet, it finally coming free and spilling her hair out around her head. Her face had blanched and sheen of perspiration had coated her brow but she seemed not to notice it. She reached her curiously calm fingers for the controls on her panels before catching his eye. "Are you alright?"

"Feels like I should be asking y-" he began before clenching his jaw, the ache in his side beginning to throb mercilessly. He clutched his torso, pressing a hand against the injury and felt the flightsuit slide wetly against his skin before a flare of pain had him reeling with nausea. "Shit, my side's bleeding," he muttered, gingerly unbuckling his station's belts and pulling himself out of his chair.

"I'm fine, by the way," Kon grumbled as Ichigo floated up over the tactical station, past Rukia as she undid her own restraints, "Thanks for asking."

The rear cabin area behind the tactical station and upper hatch airlock of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ was really more of a closet lined with storage cabinets than a proper cabin. A large amount of the mass of the ship was taken up by her twin thrusters and engines, ammunition storage and loading assemblies, and the exterior defensive armor plating. It left precious little leftover for interior amenities or crew comforts. The ship did not even have an A-Grav generator, only an I-Grav emitter for atmospheric flying. Rummaging through the compartments, Ichigo eventually felt a small hand shake his foot, Rukia floating next to an open cabinet, the medical supplies within all arranged in a neat, orderly fashion.

"Take your flightsuit off," Rukia suggested.

Ichigo missed the undercurrents in her voice, too preoccupied with what had just happened back at the comm station and distracted by the pain in his side. He unsealed his flightsuit and unzipped it down to his waist, pulling his arms free to let the material drift around behind him. Looking down, the injury itself didn't look as bad as he thought it might. There was a thick line of bruising beginning to blossom across his ribs where he had taken Fisher's clubbing blow. What didn't look so good was all the blood smeared across his abdomen and chest from the cuts and punctures that came along with it. Detaching his mind from his own injury as best he could, he was mortified as he caught himself muttering, "What would my father do?"

"Huh?" She unsnapped the locks on her weapon harness and was pulling the rigs from her flightsuit, working on getting them back into her small armory.

"My dad, he's the doctor. My sisters and I would help out in the medical bay as we made our way around the mining operations in the outer belts," Ichigo said, pain straining his voice as he set an injector in the dispenser, setting it for the smallest dose of the mildest painkiller available.

"Is that where you learned this stuff, from your dad?"

"My dad," he began, double checking the dose and still hesitating before holding the injector to his neck and depressing the plunger, "Should never be allowed to teach anyone anything."

"What makes you say that?" she asked, unzipping her flightsuit and pushing it off her shoulder to get a look at her own injured arm before she realized her pressure shirt was in the way. Thankful it still didn't hurt much, she looked back at Ichigo as he slid open the shower compartment, his face revealing his surprise as he pulled it out, along with enough hose to reach his side. She shrugged helplessly, listening to him mumble that he should have studied the interior of the ship more thoroughly instead of just the navigation, engine and weapon systems.

One of the more annoying aspects of having such a small ship, she had long ago decided, was that there was no true separate place to "shower." Preservation of modesty came a distant second to functionality in spaceship design, and since Rukia had grown up planetside for most her life she had first found it difficult to adapt. That had changed over time and it occurred to Rukia, warmth beginning to seep through her system, kindled by the interplay of muscles across his back and fanned higher by the chemicals rushing through her bloodstream, that the prospect was no longer so annoying.

"You'll know why when you meet him," Ichigo said offhandedly, flicking on the shower head. A small dome of clear, pure water appeared in the middle of the bowl-shaped nozzle, a gentle stream flowing up through the center only to be quickly sucked away by the intakes around the rim. He hissed as he put the nozzle against his skin, washing off the blood that had smeared across his torso. "Yep, definitely cracked," he said through his teeth, dabbing the head against his side and cleaning the cuts along his ribs.

Rukia, her mouth dry and heart beginning to pound in her ears, had to turn away from him and work on controlling her breathing. Looking down at herself, she saw blood had seeped into the material of her pressure shirt across her arm and shoulder. Old memories began to assault her, images she had sworn were no longer a part of her new life in the G-13. She hurriedly grabbed a pair of scissors from the cabinet and sliced her pressure shirt off, desperate to get the blood away from her before fumbling the zipper back up, closing her flightsuit over her bare chest. Just as soon as they had surfaced, the troubling memories were gone, replaced by guilt and shame and an inescapable feeling of responsibility about what had happened to Lirin. Tears were welling in her eyes as reality of another death was laid upon her conscience and yet before she could even begin to process it, her mind raced onward. Her fists at her temples, she fought what she knew was a losing battle.

Ichigo had twisted around when she looked back at him, focused on getting most of the blood off himself and washing out his injury. Droplets of water had escaped the suction of the showerhead and were clinging to the muscles down his chest. She knew, somewhere in the recesses of her mind as she stared at the minuscule beads of water, that it was wrong to impulsively act upon the warmth of desire welling up within her. That now was not the time or place. The problem, she realized as she drifted towards him, wanting nothing more than to lick away every drop that remained, was that her tenuously held self control was unraveling.

Cracks were appearing in the armor of ice she had built around herself with rigorous noble tutelage and endless navy training, the two things she told herself she had to rely on, the false history she used to cover up her storied past. Control was key, the central link that kept her armor fastened. The other pilots in the academy couldn't understand, they only saw a distant, haughty noble in their ranks. They couldn't know this armor wasn't there to shield her from the world, Rukia had developed more than enough wit and skill to handle nearly any situation, combat or otherwise. No, the armor was designed to protect her from herself, the things she had done, the feelings she had reveled in.

The people she had killed.

Now that control was shaking under the stress her body had endured, old responses to danger clawing their way up to light a fire in her veins. Hugging her body against it, she feared the potency of the fire that she knew his mere touch could kindle. She had felt that twice fire before, fuzzy memories of her time with Renji, where piracy and love and violence and sex were jumbled together. Where living your life could so easily come at the expense of another's. The expense of another... the words hit her like a slug to the stomach as she looked at Ichigo's lanky frame, furrowed brow and spiky orange hair, coloring it black in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing away the painful memories as she clapped a hand over the old scar on her ribcage. In seconds and with her body pushed to overdrive, the rapid stream of emotional states flowing through her mind was numbing her to everything but what her body wanted, and she wanted him.

The lacerations now clean and the bleeding mostly stopped, Ichigo took one of the small towels and began patting himself dry as he skimmed through the medical cabinet looking for a roll of dermal repair tape. The cabinet was surprisingly well stocked and fitted with field versions of a number of devices they had on the _Masaki,_ but regular old dermal repair tape was simple and effective. He supposed he could use a general purpose cutaneous agent for his skin but decided against it, adding a few more minor scars to his collection didn't bother him.

He felt the towel slip from his fingers and rather than question it, he used his now free hand to flip open a few containers and locate the spool of thick, rubbery tape. Before he could begin to peel it off though, he felt the towel pressing against his back, wicking up the water that had stubbornly clung to his skin. Perplexed, he arched an eyebrow but still managed to work his fingernail under the edge of the roll and pull off a strip. He managed to tape up his injuries as he felt the prodding of the towel replaced by the gentle exploration of ten slender fingers.

"Uh, Rukia?"

"Shhhh," she hushed, tracing her hands down the muscles of his back.

"Listen, I need to take a look at your arm," he said, twisting around. Rukia's flightsuit was unsealed and unzipped halfway down her chest, Ichigo catching the flash of bare skin beneath the black material.

"My arm is fine, doesn't hurt a bit, you took care of it already," she said immediately and dismissively, breathing hard and staring down at the unzipped flightsuit riding low on his hips. Unable to stop herself, completely at the mercy of some primal desire to feel close to someone in wake of tragedy, to feel alive, she felt her lips trembling as she glided her hands over the skin of his chest.

She had been forward before, confident and direct in what she wanted physically and intimately, but the timing was wrong here and it was throwing him off balance. "Of-of course your arm doesn't hurt, you've still got stimpack painkillers running through your system," he said, attempting to disentangle himself from her roaming hands. "I'm surprised you can feel anything."

"Ichigo," she said, her voice somewhere between breathy plea and pent up frustration. Feeling her heart hammering in her chest and that fire spreading through her that she was powerless to stop, she drifted closer to him as she whispered, "I feel..." She caught him around the back of his neck, her fingers tickling up into his hair as she brought herself close enough to feel his breath against her skin. "I can't seem to..." Coming so close, the sensation of his body heat, the tingling she felt through her neural link as she touched him, it all combined to throw some kind of switch in her mind.

Feeling as if he had just been acquired for target lock, he managed to catch her eyes as she fisted one hand into the material floating at his waist. Her eyes were dark, swimming with desire and arousal, and something else. He realized, though it was becoming difficult to think clearly with her so close, that when she had moved to touch or kiss him before, that she had done so on her terms, that she had been sure and in control. The look in her eyes this time told him this was different, that this was happening for all the wrong reasons. He held up his hands as if he could ward her off. "I just think-"

"Think think think," she whispered heatedly, "Thinking and worrying and fighting and running..." She slithered her other hand down his cheek and trailed her fingertips over his bare chest. "Feeling cold and distant and alone... I'm so tired of feeling that all the time, I don't want feel that way with you." She used the flightsuit material at his hips to pull him against her.

He managed to get a hold of one of her shoulders but not before her leg wrapped around one of his own. Trained in microgravity hand to hand combat, Rukia knew how to use the leverage to her advantage as she pressed her body firmly against his, her lips finding his jaw line and gently caressing their way downward before nipping at his neck and shoulder. Feeling his body beginning to respond urgently and enthusiastically to her touch, he still managed to retain the presence of mind to pull back the collar of her flightsuit to get a look at her upper arm. The angle awkward and the material snug, he realized he'd need something to stabilize her with, so he used his other hand to grip her in the only place within reach that would serve his purpose.

"Finally," she said, gasping as she felt him cup his hand onto her ass as he wrenched the flightsuit off her shoulder.

As he feared, the makeshift bandage around her arm was wet with blood, the jump drive g-forces likely reopening the wounds. His libido angrily but obediently disengaged as he tried to move the open collar of her flightsuit further out of the way, but was quickly made all the more difficult as Rukia captured his lips with her own. Desperate and panicked were the only two fitting descriptions of Rukia's behavior he could think of as he worked on wresting his mouth free from hers. "Wait, wait, just stop."

"I thought you said you liked it when I wasn't so uptight all the time?" she responded before kissing her way back down his neck.

"Not like this... This isn't the real you, Rukia."

"Shows what you know," she said, her voice hungry, "I've wanted this for so long."

"Look, you're still high on amphetamines and endorphins and adrenalin and we almost just died," his voice choked slightly, "It's-it's affecting your judgment, making you do things you wouldn't normally."

"I don't care, I'm not even really listening. Seems like your face is complaining but the rest of you," she let her hands slide downward, creeping beneath edge of his flightsuit, "Doesn't seem to be listening either." She wrapped her legs around his hips, intentionally pressing herself down hard onto his groin.

Abandoning attempts at conversation, his throat momentarily too constricted to speak anyway, he set his fingers against to column of her neck and tried to focus on the process of opening a medical link. Hearing her breath hitch as she took a hold of his wrist, then lean back and proceed to drag his fingers down the open front of her flightsuit did not help his concentration.

"Your hands are so cool, they feel good on my skin," she said breathlessly.

"It's because you're burning up." Heat was radiating off her skin as his hand dipped through the valley between her modest breasts, his palm snagging against the zipper and pulling the black material taut against her. Rukia's face flushed with consternation as she released his wrist, locked her legs around his hips, and immediately set about trying to lower her jammed zipper. Ichigo took a moment to thoroughly rage at the injustice of the situation, his attention commanded by the twin points of her nipples denting the fabric that barely covered her chest. Unconfined by a pressure shirt or bra and unencumbered by gravity, every movement of her body sent mesmerizing, sympathetic vibrations through her breasts, each remaining tantalizingly hidden even as Rukia managed to unzip her flightsuit down past her navel. "So fucking unfair," he said as restraint prevailed, barely, and he tore his eyes away from her and immediately began searching through the medical supplies with one hand.

Rukia chilled as his other hand brushed against her midriff, diving inside the loosened flightsuit to wrap firmly around her trim waist. Momentarily confused by something her neural link was doing, she brushed away the alert notice and instead pulled her arms free from the confines of her flightsuit, deftly unsealing it from around her waist and tossing the entire top portion away. The cool, crisp air inside the ship against her suddenly naked upper body made her suck in a breath before the tingles near his hand began spreading over her. Arching her back and shifting her hips, she could feel him beneath her and listened to him groan through clenched teeth.

Her coral pink tongue sliding along her lips, she looked down at Ichigo's body, the muscles along his stomach taut and defined. She couldn't be bothered with what he was doing up above his head, likely holding onto something for support, she reasoned. _A good thing too,_ she thought to herself eagerly, _he's going to need it_. "Have I told you," she said, sliding her hands down beneath the edge of his open flightsuit, "How much I enjoy the fact that you don't wear a pressure shirt?"

He grit his teeth and focusing on the medical displays as Rukia began undoing the fasteners at his waist.

"Oh," she said, pointedly caressing him, "There's some definite pressure here though."

"Rukia!" he exclaimed, his voice strangled. "You're injured, the stimpack has put your body is on overdrive and I need to focus on fixing your arm!"

"My arm," she said, wrestling with his flightsuit, "Is the last thing I want you to focus on. Hah, I used to be such a good little soldier girl." She managed to undo the last fastener, the waist of his flightsuit widening as she pushed it down past his hips. "Followed orders, didn't ask questions, all until the day I met you. Then what's the first thing I do? I got you inside my..." She yanked his flightsuit pants down to his knees. "Tight..." She smoothed her hands up his bare thighs until she got to his underwear. "Little..." She hooked her fingers into the waistband and began eagerly inching them downward. "Spaceship."

The dispenser finally chimed, Ichigo having constructed a compound serum the device deemed free from drug interaction. He waved away the floating medical displays and snatched it from under the hood, sitting up and grimacing as his side flared with pain. He froze as she looked up at him, all the mischievousness and simmering desire he was drawn to overpowered by desperation and mania.

"C'mon Ichigo, you know you want to..."

He reached down and gently caught her around the back of the neck, his fingers curling up into her hair. Bringing her close, half floating and half sliding up his body, he made to guide her lips to his, her bare heated skin grazing against his own. "More than you know." In one smooth motion, he placed the injector against her neck and depressed the plunger.

Her head snapped back, jerking away from him. "What... what was in that?" She clapped a hand over the spot on her neck, blinking owlishly at him.

"A vasodilator to cut down on your blood pressure."

"Oh?" Rukia's eyes began to slide out of focus, her lids growing heavy. "Are you shuurrr?" she slurred.

"An anti-arrhythmia agent to slow your pulse rate." Rukia's eyes drifted closed as her whole body relaxed. "And a sedative, which will put you to sleep," Ichigo said, hitching his pants back into place and carefully watching as Rukia hung limply in the zero gravity, her lips still parted as her breathing evened out, "While conveniently wiping out your short term memory."

Ichigo sighed and pulled a thermal blanket from one of the storage cabinets. "Not that I'd refuse, y'know," Ichigo continued, feeling a need to explain himself as he wrapped it around her shoulder and under her injured arm, "It's just... I'd rather the offer be genuine, instead of the result of an electro-chemical imbalance in your brain." Though he was careful to keep his eyes on neutral territory as he tucked the shiny silver material around a slumbering Rukia, he still noticed that her alabaster skin wasn't quite as flawless as he assumed. She had her own collection of faint, faded scars. Setting that particular detail aside, he did his best to objectively examine the trio of slashes across her upper arm after removing the blood soaked bandage.

Culturing both an exact dermal repair agent and a deep tissue muscle reconstructor was going to take some time, so he secured her to one of the contour pads he enrolled from its compartment after setting up the devices, then proceeded to gently and carefully clean and disinfect her injury. Finished, he removed a small set of delicate instruments from the medical cabinet and mentally prepared himself to micro-suture the muscle closed.

"Alright," he confessed to her, "I've only ever done this a few times. It's pretty easy, but still, I'm no expert." He activated the imager tool and a new display appeared next to her, a microscopic view fed from the tip of one of his tools. "It's just like re-threading a split cyclo-attenuator," he told himself, clipping into the brackets next to her and looking at her arm, at the scope of the repair before him. "Re-threading a lot of attenuators... And it's a girl, not an engine..." Exhaling a deep breath before preparing the area around her wounds, with Rukia unconscious and no one else around for hundreds of thousands of miles, he felt suddenly very alone. The only sound through the cabin as he worked was their breathing over the hum of the engines.

"The deep tissue culture is done," Kon said suddenly, making Ichigo nearly jump. Nearly.

He ran a hand over his face before preparing to continue. "I am trying concentrate here, Kon."

"I can help, I do have encyclopedic knowledge of female anatomy," he offered.

"Why do you... nevermind. Alright fine, you assist," he said, marking the displays as shared between them.

Together, Ichigo's long frame bent over next to Rukia and Kon offering advice and instruction from his processor core, they began meticulously stitching up the damaged muscles in her arm, infusing tiny amounts of the stemcell suspended deep tissue solution as they went. Feeling more confident as Rukia's medical monitors began noting improvement, Ichigo moved to where she had been cut the deepest, intending to work his way outwards. It was there that they both noticed something strange.

"What's this?" he said, peering into the display he had hovering in his neural link. He zoomed in on the image and adjusted the suture tip slightly, getting a better view. Threaded through her deeper muscle tissue were tiny fibers, thinner than strands of hair and branched and wound through the muscle groups like another nervous system. Looking carefully, the severed tips of the nano-scale wires at the base of her injury had rebuilt themselves where he had just begun to knit her muscle back together.

"Looks like a bio-mod, probably a fine motor control system," Kon guessed. "Makes sense, seeing as how she's the tac officer and all. Probably how she swings those guns around too, and I'm not talking about her ti-"

"Kon."

"What?"

Ichigo blew a low whistle as he continued to micro-suture her injury closed layer by layer, using the placement of the tiny wires as guides. A self-assembling, neural link connected muscle control system was not cheap, even for small muscle groups, and Rukia apparently had them down her entire arm. Probably both arms now that he thought about it.

By the time the dermal culture was finished he had completed the deep tissue reconstruction and the three slices in her upper arm were nothing more than shallow but angry looking cuts. Closing the cuts with the stemcell cultured paste and encasing her upper arm in a medical progenerative cuff, he finished up and leaned back to survey his handiwork. The stemcells would differentiate, allowing the muscle fibers to naturally re-knit as long as the suture framework held, and the paste would heal the damaged skin. Professional dermal regeneration could take care of any scarring, but that could wait. Securing her arm down next to her, he hoped Rukia wouldn't be in too much pain when she woke up.

A spasm across his side reminded him that she wasn't the only one injured. Moving carefully, he pulled himself around the interior, collecting the top half of her flightsuit from the forward station. The inner lining was still slick with her blood and he balled it up, stuffing it into storage before shucking his own flightsuit and doing the same. Pulling on the only remaining clothes he had, his battered old utility pants and crew shirt from his father's ship, he saw her armory cabinet was open and her weapon harness had become unstowed.

Reaching over to close the arms locker, a glint from one of the pockets made him pause. Taking a closer look, he felt his stomach clench uncomfortably as a tremor shook his normally precise hands.

Stimpacks.

Ichigo froze, his fingers inches from the unassuming metal cylinders. A bead of sweat glistened at his temple as he stared down at the open pocket, a jumble of disjointed memories rushing through his mind, coupled with the ghosts of old, familiar sensations. With an effort, he squeezed his eyes shut and commanded his fingers to close the pocket, breathing out a calming breath and working on clearing his mind. Opening his eyes, he chewed his lips as he saw the pocket was still open. His fingers twitched again.

* * *

Fighting her way up from the depths of unconsciousness, Rukia blearily cracked her eyes open and fought to get her bearings. Feeling worn and stiff, she came to realize she was inside one of the ship's sleeping bags, topless but wrapped snugly in a thermal blanket except for her sore and bandaged arm. An intravenous line was taped to her forearm and Rukia traced it back to the medical cabinet's small detoxification device, though it was now deactivated and simply pushing re-hydration fluids.

Looking around the darkened cabin for any sign of Ichigo, she pushed herself out of the sleeping bag and felt every muscle in her body ache in protest. Holding the blanket's edge in her teeth, she snaked her other arm out and carefully shut off the medical systems before freeing the line and drawing the needle out of her arm. Sticking a square of dermal tape over the spot at the crook of her elbow, she drifted forward to see Ichigo buckled into the pilot's station and fast asleep, his fingers locked behind his head and feet up on the consoles.

"Mornin' sunshine."

Rukia started at the unexpected voice before her fuzzy memories began to sharpen. "Kon?" Her voice was hoarse and weak, she hardly sounded like herself.

"Yep," he replied, his voice coming from the cabin speakers. "How are you feeling?"

"Terrible."

"Yeah well, stimpacks work you over pretty hard even if you're uninjured. Carrot-top over there did everything he could to filter it from your system and fix up your arm. I helped, y'know."

Rukia lifted up the edge of the bandage to peek at her arm. Bruised and mottled, it wasn't pretty but the wounds had been tended and closed with unerring precision. She looked over at the back of Ichigo's head, then to his reflection in the ship's canopy beyond. The hardness in his face was gone, his brows had relaxed and that critical, analyzing look around his eyes had slipped away, leaving only innocent serenity in their wake. "Thanks, Ichigo," she whispered, feeling a smile curve the edges of her lips as she moved up to her station. Looking past Ichigo's reflection as she floated at her seat, the view laid out in front of her nearly left her speechless.

"Wh-where are we?"

"About seventy four A-U from the twin suns, orbit Seventeen-B, just beyond the range of Koriboru. Pretty damn close to the ass end of the solar system and cruising around for something Ichigo swears is out here somewhere."

"Is the color overlay system on?"

"Nope, why?"

"Because I've never seen..." Stretching out beneath them, all floating deathly still and glinting with refracted light, were hundreds of thousands of ice asteroids as far as she could see. Curling up from the sea of frozen, jagged rock were huge plumes of ice and dust particles that rose like frozen clouds, catching the light from the stars and shining brilliantly in shades of cobalt and azure. Stricken breathless by the grandeur and spectacle, the sheer enormity of the luminous columns and arches of frozen cloud, the whole of it shined translucent and insubstantial through an endless field of diamond-like ice.

The scene outside slid as the ship angled downward, descending into the field and cutting a course through the floating chunks of ice. Ahead of them, deeper in the belt floated one of many huge frost-coated asteroids, hanging still and silent against the icy cloudscape. "Thar she blows," Kon said, adjusting the ship again, "The white whaaaaale."

"The white what?" Rukia whispered distractedly, staring awestruck at the swirls and eddies of glittering blue around them.

"Kids today," Kon muttered. The running lights beneath the consoles and overhead began brightening, bringing the interior to normal illumination. "Up and at 'em, Ichigo," Kon said loudly, "We're here."

Rukia blinked and squinted in the sudden light, instinctively drawing back. "Is that really necessary?"

"No, but it's funny," Kon said, turning the displays around Ichigo into garishly colored flashing strobe lights. "ICHIGO!"

"Mm-wh, what?" he said, his legs jerking slightly as he woke, "Dammit Kon." He stifled a yawn, his fist at his mouth, while he stretched as far as the belts on his seat allowed.

"See? Fun," Kon said to Rukia.

"Fuck you Kon," Ichigo muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Love ya too," Kon blithely replied, "Rukia's up, by the way."

Ichigo turned around in his chair, managing to catch a glimpse of Rukia before his side twinged in pain. In the brief moment he had seen her, with hair mussed from sleep, the blanket wrapped low around her arms and her luminous blue-violet eyes looking into his own, he was struck by how beautiful she looked, honest and unguarded. His cracked rib flaring in pain, he grimaced as he unbuckled himself from the station and turned back to see she had hitched the blanket up to her neck as she finger-combed her midnight locks. Instead of being on him, her eyes were cool, distant, and studying the astrometrics display.

"What are we doing out here, Ichigo?"

"Well," he replied, setting his consoles back to normal and severing Kon's navigation connections. "The ship is pretty banged up and stopping at any service hangar is out of the question, so we need some place off the radar to try to fix the ship and rest for a while."

"This close to the rim, a dozen A-U from the eighteenth orbit in a ship designed for short range intercepts is not exactly inconspicuous. We'll still stick out like a sore thumb to any mining crew or survey team that'll happen to see us."

"No one's going to see us," Ichigo said, turning the nose of the ship to keep it pointed at the huge asteroid.

Rukia was about to ask why as the ship angled to point at one particular crater that pockmarked the enormous asteroid as it grew to dominate their view. Her thin eyebrows arched in surprise as she saw an airlock iris open at the base of the crater, spilling out cool white light. Confused, she realized it wasn't an airlock but a shiplock, far bigger than it appeared as they eased through the open gate, Ichigo activating the landing struts as the door irised closed behind them.

"Landing gear is shot, remember?" she said, deflecting her unease at the unfamiliarity of the situation.

"Shouldn't make too much of a difference," he said as the inner door status flipped to green and irised open.

"Ichigo," Rukia said, stunned twice over at what she saw, "There is a _rainforest_ inside this asteroid."

"Yeah," he replied, unsurprised, "Before the navy occupation of th-"

"It's not an occupation," she interrupted, "It's a peace keeping mission."

"You don't have to give me the P-R line, I'm not a Free Spacer," he said easily, slowly navigating the ship into a huge atrium. "Anyway, back in the day they turned a lot of these asteroids into big greenhouses. Hollowed them out, fit them with A-Grav and power, and grew enough food to feed the outer orbits until terraforming could take hold."

Looking out through the canopy, Rukia could barely see the cavernous roof beyond the lines of sunlights that arced over them. In every direction she looked, any evidence that they were inside a hollowed asteroid was obscured by the plethora and diversity of plants, trees, flowers and carpets of long green grass. Condensation was beginning to coat the edges of the canopy as they moved to touch down in a clearing, and Rukia noticed the air above them was thick with a hazy mist. Her attention was drawn back to Ichigo as she heard him whispering to himself, his hands and feet making minute adjustments to the piloting systems and flicking different controls.

"Gently... gently..." The landing gear came in contact with the grass covered ground and Ichigo slowly began reducing I-Grav output. The ship settled down onto her broken landing struts, creaking and crunching as they began to buckle beneath her weight. Wincing, Ichigo reduced the output to zero and cut engine power, followed almost immediately by an ominous bang that dropped the nose of the ship a few inches. "Front landing strut needs work," he noted to himself.

"There's still gravity here? And a breathable atmosphere?" Rukia asked, looking back out the glass as a pair of black and maroon winged butterflies drifted past.

"Yeah, gravity index is only a quarter of nominal though, so watch your step." Ichigo pressed a control and the clear canopy around them released from its seal with a crack, then lifted and slid smoothly back. The rush of fresh, fragrant air was an instant and welcome change as both of them involuntarily took in a deep draft, then breathed out a sigh of relief.

"You said they used to use them as greenhouses? They don't anymore?" Rukia asked, watching as Ichigo swung his legs over the edge of the canopy and drop out of sight.

"The Free Spacer orbits are full of abandoned derelicts and empty colonies, these are just more of the same. No one's left to manage them so they broke down from neglect and lost containment. There's a few still out there, like this one, which managed to keep going, but they're all overgrown inside."

"Oh, right." Rukia sat heavily in her station seat, thinking about what he'd said. The reality of what happened to the outer orbits was different when she saw it personally, Uryu's empty factory ship, this abandoned agriculture asteroid. She had grown up on Junrinan Two where life was hard, but she'd always been surrounded by people, pirates or their prey. Afterwards, she'd been enfolded into the aristocracy and then quietly shunted into the navy before she had a chance to see this side of things.

"You coming?"

"Yeah, just let me change. I seem to be missing half my clothes."

"I needed to get to your arm."

Rukia nodded absently even though she knew he couldn't see her. She was wracking her brain as she stood and moved towards the rear cabin, trying to remember what happened after the jump drive explosion. The only things she could recall were a couple fragments and hazy sensations, nothing more. Hoping she didn't embarrass herself, but feeling curiously like she had, she shrugged it away as she pulled out some spare clothes. She made to loosen and put away the thermal blanket when she paused. "Kon?"

"Yes?" he replied over the speakers.

"Are you watching me over the interior camera?"

"Uh, technically?"

"Are you _recording_ me over the interior camera?"

"... no-o-o-o?"

"You're a terrible liar and as much of a pervert as Ichigo says," she said smartly before hanging the blanket over the camera lens.

"Aww man," Kon whined.

Ichigo was crouched near the front of the ship, rubbing his chin and staring alternately between the shredded lateral winglet, the laser burns across the armor, and the crumpled landing gear. He heard Rukia jump down from the canopy and take a couple of strides to land next to him, the grass rustling beneath her feet. "The winglet's support structure can be jury-rigged back together, the control surface itself is still salvageable. I don't know if the landing gear is gonna make it, the assemblies themselves are bent and stressed. If the gravity was any stronger in here they would've collapsed already. The laser burns are another problem, I know they don't look too-" he turned to her and his tongue got all confused in his mouth. "Pretty..." he managed to say.

"Hmm?" Rukia asked innocently, hands clasped behind her back as she rocked back and forth in her bare feet, her toes wiggling in the green grass.

"You look pretty, uh," Ichigo scratched his head as she peered at him inquisitively, "Different. It's just, I've never seen you wear a dress, that's all."

Fluttering at her knees in the marginal gravity was the edge of a simple dress of some natural material. "It's warm and humid in here. And I didn't feel like wearing another flightsuit. And I didn't want to hurt my arm trying to get a pressure shirt on," she defended. "Besides, I like wearing dresses."

"At least you have options, these are all the clothes I've got," Ichigo said, indicating his less-than-perfectly-clean utility pants and shirt. "How is your arm anyway?"

"It's fine, doesn't hurt a bit, you took care of it already." She watched him pause for a moment and catch her eye, the words sounding oddly familiar to her for some reason. He looked beneath the edge of her bandage and nodded sagely. "So I have a clean bill of health, Doc?"

"Just keep it clean and don't work it too hard," he said, annoyed at his nickname. "You hungry?"

"Famished," she said, brightening at the prospect of food. "I'll get some supplies from the ship." She felt him take her hand in his own before she could turn completely away, making her stop to regard him.

"What for? There's plenty right here," he said, indicating the myriad of plant life around them. His fingers threading with hers, he led her off towards a break in the trees as she looked around, seeing the vegetation in a whole new light. "Kon! Stay with the ship, we'll be back later!"

"Har har," Kon said over the loudspeaker, "'Stay with the ship.' Real funny, fuck you Ichigo!"

"Love ya buddy!" Ichigo shouted back as they moved on down a nearly overgrown path through the bushes.

Distracted by the strange, spindly nature of the trees, no doubt a side effect of growing under such minimal gravity, it took her a moment to realize Ichigo knew where he was headed. "You've been here before," she stated as much as she asked.

"Who do you think kept this place running?"

"So this," Rukia began as they crested a small rise and looked down into a bowl shaped valley, "Is all yours?" Across the huge cavern the dominating feature was _green_ , with such a vibrancy and abundance that it nearly hurt the eyes to behold. Broad leafed trees towered over fields of waving green grass, dappling the ground with patches of cool shade. Stands of bushes grown so large they challenged the definition grew along the rising walls of the cavern. Their woven, coiling branches hung heavy with ripe fruit but still managed to reach up the rocky faces towards the ever-lit sunlights. More black and maroon butterflies floated past on a light breeze as Rukia noticed a waterfall tumbling down across from them, spilling out in slow motion to land in a wide, shallow pool and producing comically exaggerated ripples in the water.

"No, not mine. I just fixed the old reactor and synchronized the A-Grav. The cavern itself did all this." He turned to her, smiling at the wondrous expression on her face. "Just provide some of the basics and things tend to fall into place."

"Oh?" She stepped closer to him, enjoying the feeling of her hand in his.

"Nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide," he said, waving a hand in air idly, still looking down at her as she looked up. "A pollinating agent," he said, pointing out the butterflies, "And a herbivorous consumer." He directed her attention down low beneath one of the nearby bushes.

She looked down his arm and saw a furry white shape moving in the shadows, peering out at them curiously. Twitching its nose, it tentatively crept out from beneath the gently swaying branches, turning its long floppy ears towards them. "Oh my God, it's _adorable,_ " she whispered excitedly, nearly hopping with enthusiasm herself. The creature must have heard her for it dove back beneath the bush and then went bounding out the far side, skimming over the tall grass in hurtling strides. Others must have heard or saw its flight and Rukia gleefully watched several more dash away to seek other hiding places.

Walking in long gliding strides through the verdant foliage next to Ichigo, Rukia was finding the serenity of the setting infectious. Running her hand through the leaves of the nearby plants, she felt like the hectic pace of the past few days had been a lifetime ago. "Thanks for taking me here," she said, "It's a nice change from all the running and fighting we've been doing."

He shot her a sidelong glance but if she realized her choice of words was familiar or not, she wasn't showing it. "I just thought we could use a little time to unwind and get the ship fixed up before we have to go over the results from the station." She nodded absently, lost in her own thoughts as she bent to smell a flower while tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He watched it fall back into place across her brow before she noticed him looking at her.

"What?" she asked, self-conscious the flower had left something on her face.

"Nothing," he soothed, "I'm just glad you're enjoying yourself."

"Well, I've never seen anything quite like this before," she admitted, taking another graceful step down the path, the hem of her dress fluttering in the breeze. "I mean, I've been to the Kuchiki Estate gardens and I've seen the hydroponics bays on Karakura station, and walked through the domes of agriculture ships, sure, but this... This is so wild and..." She halted as she felt him step close to her. They had descended halfway down to the valley floor and the riotous plant growth had pressed in close to the path, muting their voices and filling air with intimate secrecy. She turned to look over her shoulder, one of her hands toying with the thin strap of her dress as she caught his eye. "So natural," she finished.

He tucked the flower she had smelled into her hair beside her ear, letting his fingers skim down her neck as he withdrew. He watched her eyes flick from his to up above as he noticed which type of tree they stood beneath. "Here, try one," he said, glossing onto an idea and stretching his long frame up to grab a deep red fruit.

Watching him, she was surprised at how tall he actually was. It was often difficult to gauge as he tended to keep his hands in his pockets, shoulders drawn and elbows tucked in, mindful of everything around him. Hallmarks of someone who grew up too tall and long for the cramped environment of spaceships and orbital stations, he obviously had never managed to shake the behavior now that he had fleshed out a bit more. Her mind wandered back to the way he looked beneath the blanket on Junrinan Two, and shirtless in the cargo bay on the comm relay station. The image of him lying prone beneath her, the muscles of his chest and stomach standing taut and defined as she straddled his hips came rushing into her mind for some reason. Realizing she was flushed and slightly glassy-eyed, she cleared her throat and took the offered fruit from his outstretched hand, ignoring his inquiring face.

Catching her faraway, vaguely blank look, it was gone in an instant as she smelled the ripe red speckled fruit. He felt his lips quirk into a wry grin as her thin eyebrows arched, catching the aroma he knew she'd recognize.

"This smells like..." she said, looking to his face for confirmation. The half-grin on his face told her all she needed to know and she proceeded to bite into the soft fruit. Sweet and tangy but underscored by the distinctive spice of cinnamon, she closed her eyes as she savored the taste of it, rolling it around on her tongue. "Mmmm, it's so much better without all the additives and chemicals and stuff," she said, laughing as she wiped away a trickle of juice that had stained her lips.

Ichigo nodded in agreement, watching her head off down the path as she glanced over her shoulder at him, her skirt dancing around her legs alluringly. "Definitely better without the chemicals," he said, mostly to himself as he made to follow, "More than you know."

The basin of the valley was covered in a field of soft green grass dotted with the occasional stand of tall trees or moss-covered spear of rock. Ichigo, however, led her towards the waterfall, both of them laden with various fruits they plucked from the trees during their descent.

"See, it aerates water vapor into the atmosphere," he said, indicating the waterfall slowly tumbling down into the lake.

"Is that why it's so humid in here?" Rukia released the edges of her skirt, letting the fruit she had collected in the fold tumble and bounce onto the lush ground as her dress stuck to her uncomfortably. Looking at the dreamlike way the water spilled out and landed in the pool below, pattering softly rather than roaring, she noted how similar the effect was to the rain of her home moon as was filled with the sudden, irrational desire peel her clothes off and stand beneath it, to feel it on her skin.

"...the pool isn't too deep but the entire subsurface is a slab of silicate rock, hey? Rukia? Where'd..." Ichigo was saying as he corralled the fruit back into a rough pile. He stopped when he noticed her dress lying in the grass next to him, then heard laughter and splashing from behind. He turned around just in time to catch a large glob of thrown water full across the face. Wiping his eyes clear, he could hear her continue to laugh over the gentle sound of the falling water.

"It's warm, c'mon Ichigo!" she called, "You know you want to!"

He scrubbed away the drops falling off his face and managed to catch sight of her moving naked through the shallow water, everything about her a study in contradiction. All the grace and movement of a dancer with the precision and lethality of a warrior, the hardness of trained muscle beneath the softness and vitality of youth, the innocent enjoyment of simple pleasures alongside sultry confidence as she pursued more complex ones. Moving to stand in the tumbling downpour, the rising mist and falling water obscuring her form, he watched her tip her head back and run her fingers through her midnight hair. He kicked his boots off while pulling his shirt over his head, smiling in spite of himself.

Exhilarated by the feather light sensation of the warm water falling across her body, she let it wash away the stress and guilt and coiled tension she had kept bottled up since being arrested for crimes they hadn't committed. Those concerns felt a million miles away from her at the moment, and were pushed even further when she felt the water falling across her back momentarily vanish only to be replaced by the solid warmth of Ichigo's body. Feeling herself encircled by his arms, she crossed her own and held them tight around her, tipped her head back against his chest and simply let the water come down over both of them.

Eventually twisting around to face him, their bodies still pressed together, she felt his hands settle in the same places they did when they were in bar on Junrinan Two. Looking up, she watched him roll his head around, working the muscles of his neck before opening his eyes and looking down at her. Surrounded by the cerulean of the falling water, his warm, melted chocolate eyes were even more striking while his dripping wet hair had darkened to bronze. She made to circle her arms around him as well, but stopped as she came in contact with something rough along his side. Reflexively looking down to see what had scratched her, she shook her head at her own thoughtlessness, seeing a few white square-shaped medical adhesives along his side. "Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice carrying even under the falling water.

Ichigo shook his head no as she lightly ran her fingers over his side, not feeling overly confident his voice would remain steady as he watched the water sheeting down her body. He found her remarkable that she was so comfortable and relaxed as she stood in his arms, seemingly unconcerned at their state of undress. Feeling the thrumming through his neural link as her hands trailed down his sides to settle on his hips, he managed to distract himself from being acutely aware of the effects she were producing, focusing instead on his neural safety system.

The tingling running through her fingers changed pitch and frequency as Ichigo looked inward for a moment. It seemed recently, based on the sensations she could pick up, that his safety system was progressively degrading unless he focused on it. She pictured it like some kind of door he was trying keep closed against a rolling tide, hints of sensory resonance spilling through the cracks and around the edges. How he could continue to function at the level she'd seen with such an unreliable neural link was beyond her. She managed to bring him out of his brief reverie as she reached up and touched him at his temples, a deliberate action of particular social significance. His eyes met hers as an unspoken exchange passed between them, his inquiring look, her slight smile, the arch of his eyebrow as he sought confirmation, the slow, simmering heat that began to smolder in her eyes, the minor tension in his hands as they went from loose to tight, the curve of her body as she pressed herself against him, moving smoothly from utterly relaxed to sensual and feminine.

Her fingers still lightly caressing his temples, he watched her close her eyes as she languidly tipped her head back, exposing the gentle sweep of her shoulder and silken skin of her neck. Filling her lungs with air, she let it out slowly, opening her eyes just as she shut down her neural safety system. To Ichigo, the change in pressure between them was as if one door of an airlock had suddenly swung open, the only barrier remaining being his own. The invitation was unmistakable and, as she leaned in to kiss him, he released his hold on on his own safety just as her petal soft lips came in contact with his.

Just as the water was cascading over her body, Ichigo's emotions came cascading through her consciousness, a swirling tumble of feelings that swam through her mind and warmed her soul. Kissing him, feeling him beneath her hands and against the skin of her body, she let the resonance build as their kiss deepened, his varying emotions rolling over her like a perpetually cresting wave, gathering up her own and coalescing them into a shared experience. Wordlessly, their lips and tongues playfully sparring, anxiety and self-consciousness fell away as yearning desire and fiery longing swept through them both. Deeply buried hints of timid bashfulness and fears of inadequacy were soothed by a depth of affection and honest, mutual attraction. The two of them smiled into their kiss, laughing with each other in equal parts playfulness and passion as juvenile eagerness was held barely in check by a thin layer of maturity, patience and discipline.

He could still taste the cinnamon and sweetness on her lips before his mouth moved over her jaw and down her neck. With her fingers curled into his hair, he let his trail of kisses and nips be guided by her hand as much as the sensations he could feel from her. Desire, pleasure, anticipation, and arousal came bursting through his mind along with excitement and the thrill of adventurous exploration. When exactly they had moved from beneath the shower of falling water and into the shallows near the edge was unclear to him. All he really knew is that fingers trailing over slick skin became palms, lips and tongues, teasing and tasting as the novelty of pleasurable discovery prompted actions and reactions that further deepened their connection, resonance and otherwise.

Perhaps the most profound aspect of feelink connections, indeed the reason they were responsible for a social and sexual revolution across the inner orbits, is that you cannot hide yourself from the effect. Emotion, prior to conscious filtering or logical, cerebral analysis, the raw unprocessed ore of sensation itself, is instantly and entirely shared to another person. It facilitates a degree of honesty in communication that words, in their myriad of interpretations, could never hope to achieve. You are entirely yourself during a feelink connection, with no barriers or affectations, so when the young man whose childhood had been so indelibly marked by sadness and grief found himself openly and entirely embraced by the young woman who never had a childhood to begin with, they each felt as if they had something special, something precious.

Seated crosslegged in the shallows of the pool, the warm water lapping gently against his thighs, he kissed his way up her body as she lowered herself to sit in his lap. Her thighs were tight against his hips as she wrapped her legs around him, pressing the hardened peaks of her breasts to his chest as one of his hands innocently caressed her back while the other boldly squeezed her rear. "This feels familiar," he half whispered to her, remembering the similar position back on Junrinan Two.

"Very familiar," she said, smirking lightly as she settled in his lap, feeling his firm length pressing against her heated center. She purposefully shifted her hips, letting him slide along her just as she had done beneath the blankets in the bar. Hearing his breath hitch as his fingers clutched against her, she could feel the ache in them both rising, spurred to a new level by sheer proximity. Rising up on her knees, she guided him to her and bit her lip as she felt herself begin to spread around him. Clutching his shoulders, her head rolled back as she paused to adjust to him, gasping again as she realized Ichigo had taken advantage of her elevated position, sealing his lips around one of her pert nipples and slowly dragging his tongue across it.

His hands on her hips, his long fingers splayed around her trim waist, he gently guided her as she moved to settle in his lap once more. Releasing her nipple freed his lips so they could press against her own as he felt her arms slide around his neck. Capturing his bottom lip between her own, he could hear her making soft but unmistakable noises of pleasurable exertion as she eased herself around him. Breaking their kiss, her breath was ragged in his ear as she took him entirely, grinding the sensitive spot at her apex against his base. Sheathed in her warmth and slick pressure, he held her close as she rocked her hips gently, finding a slow rhythm and tightening around him as completion and fullness rolled through their minds.

"Ru-Rukia," he managed to say. Her head resting against his shoulder, she looked up at him without altering their slow pace. "Li-listen, it's uh-" his throat tightened, cutting off his words before he could finish.

"It's been awhile..." she said, still without stopping, "Since you had... A pretty girl... Sitting on your lap... And had this... Kinda thing happen?"

He could only nod and laugh as she repeated his words from the bar, capturing her smiling lips with his own. Slow and undemanding, they molded together as their bodies remembered the physicality of intimacy, savoring long-absent sensations as they moved in natural harmony.

* * *

Peaceful. It was the first time in a long while that she felt truly calm and at ease. Sitting against one of the odd trees within the arboretum, its smooth bark cool against her naked back and Ichigo's head lying in her lap, she ran her fingers through his hair and smiled at his relaxed face. With his eyes closed and the muscles across his brow fractionally relieved, she'd almost say he was asleep were it not for the fingers that kept tracing patterns on the skin of her leg.

"Ichigo?" she said softly, still toying with his hair. He made noise in his throat somewhere between 'Yes?' and 'Don't-spoil-the-mood' without opening his eyes. She turned his head slightly, her finger sliding down his neck to touch the small red circle where he had stuck himself with the injector.

"Why didn't you use a stronger painkiller when you were taping up your side?"

Ichigo's eyes popped open, realizing that if she could recall such a minute detail about what happened before they landed, she'd likely be able to remember everything. His eyes flicked up to meet hers as he tried to think of how to explain away drugging her into unconsciousness without incurring her wrath, but he calmed immediately when he saw the rare, gentle expression on her face.

"You don't have to tell me," she continued softly as she traced her finger down along his jugular vein. She felt the hand gliding along her leg freeze, his body going rigid as the tip of her fingers slid over the top of many more circles, each of the shallow old scars faded to near-imperceptibility. "When... _If_ , you feel like talking... when you're ready to tell me, I'll listen." She felt him relax, if slightly, as she moved her hands away from his neck. "I'll just wait until then."

He smiled somewhat ruefully to himself, bringing up his hand to rub absentmindedly at the spot she had been touching as he let his eyes close again. "I'll think about it."

She sniffed at his noncommittal answer before watching him stretch his arm up from his neck and run his knuckles up her thigh and over her hip. Writhing beneath his hand as he found a ticklish spot, she heard him chuckle as she shifted her hips around beneath his head.

"What about you?" he asked, striking back up conversation.

"'What about me,' what?" she fired back at him, a smile on her face. She could feel their feelink connection, which had been murmuring contented happiness, begin to pick up and resonate a bit more actively.

"You asked, now I'm asking," he replied, his hand pausing as he lightly touched the skin on the side of her ribcage. A small puckered mark blemished her skin, something she could have easily erased through dermal regeneration, and yet it remained. It was one of several he had only recently noticed.

It was Rukia's turn to go quiet and still. "Are we going to compare scars now?" she asked quietly. He sat up from his prone position, lifting his head from her lap to turn around to face her. Her breath caught in her throat as the interplay of muscles across his body moved him close to her, his hands sliding down to her waist as he shifted his weight.

"We each seem to have a fair number of them," he replied, smoothing his thumb across a faint line along the side of her stomach.

"Knife fight, when I was a teenager," she whispered, running her hand over an old, jagged patch over his shoulder.

"Plasma containment leak," he whispered, dipping his lips to her neck and kissing his way lower.

Arching into his body, she let herself be guided down away from the tree to lay the grass. Feeling his hands slipping around her body, one gliding up her back and the other sliding up her thigh, she felt him linger on a spot above her knee before tapping it questioningly. "Gunshot, during a takeover," she gasped as his warm mouth captured one of her hardened nipples, his tongue dragging gently across it. Wrapping her legs around him, she ran her fingers through his hair, finding the small cleft in the skin she had seen near his hairline.

"Mechanic's fitter wrench, during a mining coalition riot," he said, using the words to blow cool air across the skin of her heated breast. His hand lingered near the puckered scar that had faded near her ribs, causing her to go very still again. Like his, each of hers bore the traces of some degree of dermal regeneration, enough to heal the skin but not erase the memory, and were only apparent upon close, intimate examination. He ran his thumb over the mark on her rib, her silence telling him that this one was her most painful one.

She slowly and deliberately moved her hand from his hair down to his neck, looking him in the eye as she ran her fingers over the series of faded circular scars along his jugular vein. Rather than shy away from her touch, she watched him tilt his chin away from her, exposing the area to her hand even more. Touched by his show of vulnerability and trust, she eased them together, feeling herself part around him and biting her lip as he slowly filled her. "You don't mind my scars?" she breathed, their eyes still locked together, her hand still caressing his neck. She herself didn't know if she meant physical or emotional.

"They're a part of who you are," he said, the fleeting tenseness in his voice dissipating as he felt himself fully enveloped. "Just like mine are, and I know... What's like to be with someone who can't understand that." His hands slid up her back as he brought himself down close to her, Rukia arching her back up to meet him. Tipping her head back and letting her hair spill out around her, the tender column of her neck was too inviting to ignore. "You don't mind my scars then?" he whispered guardedly before closing in.

She shook her head no, tossing her hair as his lips began placing fiery kisses against the cool skin of her neck. "It just means," she started thickly, beginning to move her hips in time with his. "That we're... Good for... Each other." Together, the two of them quickly lost themselves to the overwhelming sensory resonance of their lovemaking.

* * *

Making their way back to the ship as they munched on the the few remaining pieces of fruit and feeling as though their muscles had been replaced with puddles of happy jelly, neither of them were in any particular hurry. Rukia was absorbed in examining her last piece of fruit, having never seen one of its kind before, while Ichigo walked silent at her side, drinking the juice from an identical one.

It was too tough to break open and too fibrous to eat raw, she noticed. "Alright," she said, drawing up her sense of Kuchiki propriety and lacing simple word with such imperious authority that it commanded his attention. She held out the odd yellow fruit and asked, "How do you drink from this?" The hint of a smirk on her lips belied her apparent seriousness.

His brows raised slightly as he lowered his fruit from his lips. "You use one of the thorns to poke a hole in it," he explained, affecting sarcastic indifference in response.

She reoriented the fruit in her hands, finding a particularly long thorn on the stem. "Oh, here's the thorn, but where do I poke it?" she said, mostly to herself as she looked for a suitable spot on the thick-skinned fruit. Wordlessly, Ichigo removed the fruit and thorn from her hands, found and deftly pierced the weak spot near the top of the fruit, then drew out the thorn before handing it back to her, a trickle beginning to run from the small hole. "Thanks, Ichigo," she said, to which he nodded in response. She brought the fruit to her lips and sipped the juice, surprised at its sweetness. "This juice is good."

"Yep."


	21. Thin Red Lines

Kon finished the analysis of the result set he and Lirin had managed to compile, wrote the whole project to storage, then moved back to idle as he stared at its leading memory address. It was more complex than they had calculated and Lirin had begun formatting the information into something Ichigo and Rukia could comprehend even before they were sure they knew what they were dealing with. She had always been better than he at putting raw data into something understandable.

Kon was sobered by the realization that he had already relegated her to the past tense. He occasionally hated being a machine intelligence.

The analysis of the data hadn't been completed by the time they'd left the station but Lirin had left him plenty of instructions and worked out the major calculations for him ahead of time. All he had to do was take what she had given him and finish. It had taken him a long time to work up the nerve to complete the project even though he knew Ichigo and Rukia were in a world of trouble and this information could help them. At the same time, the uncompleted analysis was the last thing Lirin had interfaced with, and permuting it would erase the last vestige of her from the universe.

Kon had let the library of data sift through his quantum matrix over a thousand times, noting every hint of Lirin's organizational system and indexing all of her metadata annotations, before finally working on completing the analysis. He hoped he'd be able to make what they'd found clear enough, and if so, what they'd do about it. Wondering idly what the were doing, he found their neural link monitors still active on the ship.

"That's kinda strange," he said to himself, refreshing the monitor system a few times. It remained unchanged. "How can both of them have a hundred percent sync ratio but link bandwidth be zero? They're not even aboard the ship..." He shrugged to himself and put it out of his mind, attributing it to some malfunctioning system damaged in the fight.

By the time the external cameras caught them walking out of the foliage nearby, Kon was getting restless and bored. Watching them meander towards the ship, their clothing in slight disarray and happy, stupid expressions on their faces, he found himself grumbling an unflattering, envious stream of qubits.

"Kon, have you managed to get that data sorted out yet?" Ichigo asked from down below, stopping to pay more attention to the broken landing strut than Kon's eventual answer.

"Yes," he snapped, "Come on in here when you're able. You're gonna want to be sittin' down."

Ichigo and Rukia traded a curious glance before hopping up into the cockpit, an easy jump in the low gravity. The long range sensor display at the tactical station was in holographic mode, they noticed, and a tiny, three inch tall version of Kon was pacing around the surface, looking curiously translucent and luminously green. Rukia settled into her chair while Ichigo stood beside it, hunched over from the low ceiling.

"Here's the short version, and you probably already know it, but you guys are fucked." Ichigo and Rukia traded a glance as Kon continued. "And since I'm now homeless and stuck with you two, I guess I'm fucked too.

"So let me see if I have this whole thing straight, since I don't want to get caught by the colonial navy any more than you do," he said, his serious tone somewhat undermined by his diminutive stature as he paced around the surface, hands behind his back. "You guys were framed for a bunch of shit you didn't do, and then piled on some stuff you _did_ do, and it's connected to some guy you've never heard of before who knew where you'd be, when you'd get there, and used it to set up an ambush on you using guys he knew wouldn't be able to pull it off, only to disappear afterwards. And then all the guys he set up against you turned up dead except for your friend, what's-his-face."

"Renji. And he's not my friend." Ichigo crossed his arms.

"And Shuuhei, and that other one they said was missing," Rukia finished, shushing Ichigo.

"Anyway, the theory is that this guy-"

"Revolver," Ichigo said.

"The Master," Rukia said. A poignant silence filled the cabin as they looked at each other, contemplating the ramifications of two unknowns instead of one.

"Revolver, the Master... Doesn't really matter," Kon repeated, rolling his eyes, "It's the same guy for all intents and purposes. Think about it, it was the ore ship with all the Hollow-whatevers on it that had the details of you two being monitored even back on Karakura Station, but it was Revolver that was using that information, right? I mean, why bother monitoring you two in the first place if there wasn't already some plan, like, say, setting you up to take the fall for the artifact thefts? Simplest explanation and all that, the odds on this just being a coincidence are pretty long. And let's face it, in the grand scheme of things, you two are pretty unremarkable."

"Gee, thanks," Rukia said, crossing her arms.

"Unremarkable is good," Kon continued, "Aside from the fact you're a noble, kinda, it lends weight to the theory that Revolver's got something to do with it. There's a lot of damn people in this solar system, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle, and yet, here you are, in the middle of everything.

"So, moving on. You guys asked us to go looking through the comm traffic for other possible similar scenarios in order to, I assume, get a better handle on the situation and some more information on who Revolver is."

"Right, basically," Ichigo said.

"I can help you with the first one, but the second one's gonna be tougher."

"What? Why?"

"Hey," explained Kon, poking a tiny finger at Ichigo, "Just because I'm smarter and more handsome than you doesn't automatically mean I have all the answers. This isn't Deus ex Machina, here." His shoulders slumped as he watched their uncomprehending faces. "Go look it up fer fuck's sake.

"Maybe it'll just be easier to show you guys." With an overly dramatic wave of his hands, the holographic display began rendering an image of their solar system above Kon's tiny head, beginning with the twin suns and zooming out further and further until the orbits of all eighteen planets and both asteroid belts shined in mid air. Beyond the last orbit, around the edge of the floating image, they could see the faint shadow that marked the beginning of the rim.

"Now," Kon said, "Watch carefully, each of these points is where and when-" A small date and time display appeared next to him, set in the relatively recent past. "-We've calculated something like what you requested, happened." Kon stuck his hands in his tiny, virtual pockets and gave a swift kick to the image of clock, starting it up at a high rate of speed. Spellbound, Rukia and Ichigo watched image of the solar system spring to life, each of the orbits beginning to move as time flicked by. Tiny moons zipped around tiny planets, the inner-most of which whizzed around the suns while the outer orbits barely moved, and through it all, tiny dots of red flared to life here and there, most out in space but more than a dozen flashing into view on the surface of various remote moons. Kon looked from the image of the solar system, red dots now flicking fast into view, down to Ichigo and Rukia's faces, their expressions a mix of disbelief and confusion. "Deus ex Machina, indeed," he muttered, looking back above him.

Ichigo didn't bother saying anything yet. Instead, he glanced at Rukia, noting the shift in her shoulders, the firmer line of her mouth. Where she had been leaning towards him, relaxed and happy, she was now firm, cold and focused. In a way, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised, he was familiar enough with her ability to compartmentalize by now. Still, it would have been nice to wait on getting back to reality a little while longer.

"There's so many," Rukia muttered, her brows knit, "Why hasn't anyone noticed before?" The frequency of blips of red light began slow down and then come to a near stop as Rukia noted the date on the display. It was about a month ago when they stopped almost altogether.

"The solar society is big, ships can go off the grid any time they feel like it, although most don't, which actually helped determine where and when they were attacked. Once we figured out which ships to look for by skimming the comm traffic for concerned relatives, angry bosses or opportunistic scavengers, we rolled it back to just the comm signals coming from those ships. Once they stopped altogether, we were pretty sure that ship had gone down."

"How can you be so sure?" Rukia asked skeptically. Relying on when a ship stopped transmitting seemed imprecise at best.

"Not everyone flies a souped-up navy space fighter and are quite as anti-social as you two are," he deadpanned. "Turns out, most people like talking to other people and as such, keep their comms lit instead of dark. They relay comm traffic for nearby ships, correlate their position and velocity with fixed installations, and, you know, actually go get their mail. Have either of you even picked up your messages yet?"

"We've been kinda busy being on the run from the law lately," Ichigo replied.

"Excuses, excuses. My point still stands, regular ships, even pirates, use their comms a lot more than either of you, so you can be generally sure of where they were attacked when you figure out where they stopped transmitting. It's all very sophisticated, try not to think too hard about it, 'kay Ichigo?"

"But surely someone must have reported them missing to the colonial government or the patrol forces, or the navy?" Rukia asked, placating Ichigo's growing ire at Kon's antics with a calming hand on his shoulder. "Why hasn't there been any news coverage on any of them for all this time?"

"The news agencies are run by the Central Four-and-Six, you really think they'll put out stories about a bunch of missing, empty, or wrecked pirate ships? And the ones that aren't pirate ships they spin as if they were attacked by pirates, if they report them at all."

"Wait, the ones that aren't pirate ships?" Ichigo spoke up.

"Oh yeah," Kon said, "Transports, mining vessels, processing ships, the occasional service colony, a couple naval support ships even. All disappeared with little trace, sometimes a scavenged wreck, sometimes a few bodies, most of the time, nothing. I told you it was way bigger than just pirates.

"Plus, whoever is doing this, you gotta know they're organized and connected. This isn't a half-assed job here, and neither were the artifact thefts. The timing fits too." Kon aimed a finger at one of the inner planets, cocked back his thumb and said, "Here's the first artifact theft, k'CHEW." The planet lit up red briefly. "Then the second, k'CHEW." He swiveled to aim at the planet in the sixth orbit, "Third, you probably know this one Rukia, k'CHEW, and the last one, but I guess that one doesn't really count since you said it was stolen preemptively, or something." He waved a disinterested hand at the moon of the fifth planet as it flared red.

"Why would you know that one?" Ichigo wondered.

"Because," she explained, "Inzuri is where the Kuchiki estate is located."

Ichigo watched her, noting the changes that flickered across her face. "What's the matter?"

Just the name of the planet was all it took to dredge up bittersweet memories of the Kuchiki manor, the gardens, the unchanging color of the sky, and her brother. "I haven't been on Inzuri in a long, long time." Young, awkward, and transplanted into a world she didn't understand, it was the actress in her that allowed her to survive and adapt. As composed as she might have been on the outside, it didn't take long for her to feel like she was the baggage that came along with his romance and marriage to Hisana.

"And I haven't seen or spoken to my brother since I left." Ever the outsider, she had quietly watched her sister share in a love and adoration so pure it could have filled a lifetime, until that life was cut tragically short. The light in both their lives, her passing drained the warmth from the Kuchiki manor and had left them uncomfortably alone with each other. Though she would forever be indebted to him, she stood by as he became as cold and remote as that empty house, silently disapproving and ultimately dismissive. When he callously informed her that she was to be enrolled in the navy officer corps, she knew the truth; Even while Hisana was alive, he had only suffered her presence and now that his wife was gone, he was eager to be rid of her.

She could feel her good mood beginning to dissipate as the reality of their situation became more apparent. "How could one person do all this?" she asked, thankfully changing the subject and indicating the myriad of tiny red points. "There's too many, spread too far across the system for it to be possible."

"I told ya," Kon said, virtualizing a holographic stone and then kicking it. "Best I can do is pattern analysis and location extrapolation, and even then, these are just rough approximations."

"Can you bring up just the first ten incidents?" Rukia asked, activating a few of her own displays as Kon cleared the simulation of all but ten glowing dots.

Ichigo watched her study the timing and locations of each of the points, guessing what she might be up to. He knew she was on to something when she brought up the details of each incident, ship make, model, crew compliment and defenses.

"You think it'd be possible to trace a route through all these points?" she asked, already beginning to set parameters and check just how much variance each point had spatially and temporally.

"I dunno," Kon replied honestly, "I don't really have an algorithm that can pin it down any further than this. There's no real telling which one, within about five of each other, happened in any type of order."

"That's okay, I can probably tell which ones are the most likely targets out of that many," she replied. "If I can narrow it down as we go, you think you can compute a probable course then?"

"Sure, I did major in Travelling Salesman you know. You ace you military strategy courses in the navy or something?"

"No, well yes, but this is different," she said, beginning her analysis, "This is less military strategy and more like what I did back when I..." She arrayed the ship specifications out in the air and sat back to study them. "Was a pirate."

Ichigo let her focus, listening to her talk out each target to herself as Kon made the occasional inscrutable comment or remark. Together, she and Kon began working up a rough model of which ships within a particular time range could possibly be attacked in order, and mapping a red line through each point in the system model. He muttered he was going back out to start fixing the ship, which earned him only the vaguest of acknowledgements from Rukia, fully absorbed in her task. He sighed lightly to himself as he sat on the edge of the cockpit, swung his legs over and made to drop to the ground.

"Hey."

Ichigo looked back over his shoulder, seeing Rukia turned his way, her fingers moving back away from her consoles. She had that same unguarded expression from when she had awoke, gentle but uncertain. The comfortability developed by near-constant proximity to each other over the past few days was warring with the nature of their evolving relationship and all its complicated, unfamiliar implications. She obviously felt compelled to say something, but had no idea what. He felt his lips twitch as he watched her struggle for something appropriate.

Her eyes narrowed as she caught his smirking grin, fuming at him for letting her flounder through the awkward moment. "Don't screw up my ship, idiot," she warned.

Ichigo laughed as he dropped off the edge of the cockpit.

Gathering what tools he needed from the asteroid's maintenance bay, he made his way back to ship, picking up a few spare fruits and vegetables and mulling over their situation in his head from a different point of view. What bothered him was not who Revolver was, or which ships were attacked in what order, what bothered him was why. At face value, after their experience aboard the ore ship, it was clear that whoever the Master or Revolver were, if indeed they were the same person, then they were collecting the crews of the ships to be turned into vessels for Hollow consciousnesses. But why? What purpose did it serve?

He considered these questions as he unbolted the lateral winglet, taking care to decouple the control surface and laying out the long frame of it on the grass. Each of the human-hollows aboard the ore ship wore different crew uniforms, so it must be that they were all from different ships. At the bare minimum, that meant that somewhere, they all must have been gathered together in one place. He began stripping the armor plating from the winglet structure as he considered that if they were all gathered in one place, that would mean there would have to be enough replenishable supplies and energy to support all their new human bodies. They had called their human bodies 'vessels', he recalled, which made sense in way, seeing as how they had used to be ships themselves. What didn't make sense were the rather grotesque bio-mods they had performed on themselves. Perhaps Kon was right and the process wasn't perfect, or maybe they naturally sought to re-plate themselves with metal. Whatever the case, even if there was only one taken and turned into a human-hollow per ship attack, it would mean that there would be hundreds of them by now. Hundreds of them, all amassed and waiting, prepared for something.

Ichigo quirked his lips as he studied the rent through the winglet structure, rubbing his chin as he considered how to weld it back together as he thought what he'd do with his own personal bunch of animalistic savages given human form and intelligence, then outfitted with ships and weapons. He ignited the arc torch and bent down to try to piece the wing back together, troubled by his own line of reasoning. Thankful to have something to do, he threw himself into the job to keep from dwelling on scenarios involving wiped out colonies, unstoppable boarding parties or space station-invading strike forces.

The damage done to the winglet was severe enough to require him to essentially chop into the remaining framework for enough material to re-form the basic shape. With the original design loaded in his neural link, he made a series of alterations to the frame and managed to preserve the armor mounting points and reattach the control surfaces. The new design was lighter but weaker than the old one, but he figured something was better than nothing as he hoisted the long winglet onto his shoulder and gently set it back into place.

"Quarter gravity makes it easy I guess," Rukia said, looking down from the cockpit.

"Yeah," he replied, setting the long structure back onto its mounting points and stooping below to reconnect the control cables. "Nice not to have to wear a loader frame to do this."

Rukia silently agreed, watching him stand back into view and mop his brow with the edge of his shirt. Catching the flash of bare skin across his abdomen, she found herself fondly remembering the feel of those muscles quiver beneath her fingertips as she... snapped herself back to reality when she realized she had missed his question. "Sorry, what?"

"I said," he smirked, "How did you and Kon do on your attack sequence analysis?"

"Oh," she huffed, her mood souring, "We're stuck. There are big, unexplainable gaps in the timing of all these attacks, even during the period with the highest frequency of incidents." She lent him a hand and hoisted him up into the cockpit beside her. Her shoulder smarted and she hissed, clutching it just as Ichigo grit his teeth and pressed a hand to his side. "Your ribs okay?" she quietly asked.

"Yeah," he muttered, "Just twinged it a bit. Your arm?"

"Same. You pull it just now or, uh..." There was a sudden hint, a mischievous suggestion beneath the turn in her smile, the shift of her hips, the minute arch of her thin eyebrow.

"Yeah," Ichigo replied, his voice lowered, "Before."

"We should probably take it easy."

"Since when are things ever easy around here?" He slid one of his hands around her waist. The opening strains of soft violin music began playing through the cabin, making them pause and look around in confusion.

"Okay Ichigo," Kon said from the holo-display, sitting in a folding director's chair and speaking through a megaphone, "For this scene we need you to start by taking her dress off with your teeth." He produced a old style clapboard in midair with a wave of his hand and snapped it closed. "And, action."

"This isn't a porno, Kon!"

Rukia, glaring daggers at Kon, eased herself away from Ichigo and composed herself, brushing her hair from her face and moving to sit back at her console. "Anyway, these timing inconsistencies throw everything off. There's no way to narrow it down any further." With a few tapped commands, the image of the solar system, complete with all the tiny red dots, appeared in the holo-display, only now there were thin red lines connecting dozens of different points. Disjointed, the lines didn't form a single path, but rather several discrete paths around the system. "We can't line up the little routes into bigger ones without more information, and we'd need a bigger flight plan in order to narrow it down to the ship, or ships, responsible."

Ichigo studied the diagram, ignoring Kon as he jumped to sit cross-legged upon the tiny image of one of the twin suns. "Well, I can spot a couple things about the flight plans you two have come up with," he said, leaning back and pointing a finger at the model. "Just from a pilot's perspective, none of these routes include a return to dock. You know, for supplies and maintenance." He flicked on the interceptor's damage report and checked the status of the lateral winglet. "And repairs."

"Docking for maintenance..." she groaned, "Of course they wouldn't be on here." She rapidly began flicking commands into her console, mapping out a probability calculation for ports capable of servicing a mid to long range vessel. "Ugh. There's too many," she sighed as numerous blue dots appeared in the display. "Probably wouldn't need repairs all that often though."

"I suppose not," Ichigo said, "Mining ships aren't armed, but pirates and Hollows are."

"But they're not fighting the Hollows, they're collecting them, somehow. Luring them in with the artifacts."

Ichigo leaned back and stared upward, his hands clasped behind his head. "You guys have to report in all your Hollow encounters to G-13 central command, right?"

"Yeah. Wait, are you saying the person might be a G-13 operative?" she asked, mildly incensed. Ichigo shook his head no and rubbed his chin, clearly on a different train of thought. "Regardless, I doubt anyone would report that they were collecting Hollows."

"But if they're not fighting the Hollows, that would mean that the G-13 isn't either."

"So..." It was suddenly obvious to her. "It's the same thing Kon did with the comm signals! You map out not where the G-13 encountered Hollows, you map out conspicuous absences of Hollow encounters! We can use it to fill in the holes in the flight plan and then narrow down the place it goes to dock!" she exclaimed to Ichigo's nodding face. She reached out and pulled him into a victorious, albeit brief, kiss. "We'll figure out which ship it is, and where their home base is all at once!" She spun back to her consoles but froze with her fingers over the controls, the thrill draining from her face.

"What?"

"I just realized, we don't have access to the G-13 encounter records."

"So we'll just fly into range where we do."

"No, we really don't. Even if my access rights still worked, which I doubt they do, my level of security isn't high enough to get this type of information."

"So who does?"

She leveled a look at him as she laced her fingers together. "Aside from the flagship of the G-13, captain class operatives would, like Captains Kyoraku and Ukitake, and..." She chewed her lips in uncharacteristic hesitancy before saying, "The heads of the noble houses."

"Wait, so that would mean..."

"Yes. My brother would have it as well."

* * *

"That's it, take her up a bit higher," Ichigo called out, turning off the arc torch and hanging his wrench in the loop on his pants. The _Sode no Shirayuki_ hummed lightly as the I-Grav pushed her up a meter higher, rising up off her broken and now detached landing struts with ease. Ichigo watched the landing gear flaps close back up, their interiors now empty of landing gear, and then up to Rukia sitting in the pilot's station and looking down from the open canopy. "No more landing for us," he sighed to himself as Rukia dipped lower, "Back to running."

"You say something?" she asked as he climbed aboard, taking the pilot station as she moved back to her own.

"Nothing important." He slid his fingers across the controls and shut the canopy, the clear cover sliding back into place to lock with a hiss. Without looking back, he eased the ship back out of the asteroid, leaving the warmth and abundant life inside for the cold reaches of space beyond.

"So what's the plan?" Kon asked over the cabin speaker as the silence began to stretch.

"There's no way to get the information from the flagship of the G-13, that'd be a quick trip to the brig again," Ichigo said.

"And we can't involve Captain Ukitake or Captain Kyoraku, they've already done more for us than they should," Rukia continued. "We really only have one option if we want to get the missing piece of the puzzle, and it's in the Kuchiki mainframe, on Inzuri."

"Still not hearing the plan, just the goal," Kon pointed out. "Do I really have to remind you that tooling around the outer orbits, and the Seventeen-B ice belt is pretty out there, is one thing. But Inzuri is orbit number six, one of the core planets in the Central Four-and-Six. Half the damn parliament is on Inzuri and you guys are talking about landing and then just strolling into the Kuchiki manor?"

"Let's focus on getting into the inner orbits before we try to figure out how to get into the Kuchiki compound, okay?" Rukia said, not exactly eager to dwell on how to break into her former home.

"Well we can't just fly there, we'd be tagged and tracked as soon as we passed Gokan. The navy or patrol forces would be all over us in less than an hour," Kon said.

Slowly weaving the ship through the ice asteroids, Ichigo stared out the canopy and happened upon an unlikely idea. "Rukia, how good is the deflector system on this ship?"

Quirking an eyebrow at him, she answered, "Top of the line, at the time she was built anyway. I think I've replaced it once, maybe."

"How long could it maintain a couple kilo-Joules output?"

"I think it's rated for peaks of five, but that's across the entire surface of the ship. It could maybe maintain one and a half, to two, for a while," Rukia said, bringing up the deflector system specifics at her console. "It's not a defensive system though, you know that, right?"

"Yeah yeah, I know," he said, staring at one particular ice asteroid, "I think I have an idea, you know how superconductors work, right?"

"Yes, but I fail to see how that's relevant."

Ichigo's lips turned up as he looked over his shoulder. "Give me weapon control for a minute and I'll show you."

* * *

"This is a waste of ammunition, you know that?" Rukia was sitting back at her console with her arms crossed, staring at the back of Ichigo's head as he took careful aim again, then activated the firing control.

"I think that should just about do it," he said, ignoring her. He closed up his trajectory calculations after checking their heading and speed. "It's gonna be slower than full burn, but it'll let us coast right into the inner orbits without being detected, hopefully." He eased the ship down beside the ice asteroid he had knocked out of the belt with a few well placed missiles and then accelerated and fine tuned with careful cannon fire.

"I don't think the deflector system was designed for this." She looked out the canopy at their brand new comet with a degree of uncertainty.

"The worst that would happen is the deflector system would fail and we'd be shredded to bits by microscopic grains of rock and ice in seconds," he replied gamely, "And even if we somehow managed to escape that, without the shielding and way out here, we'd die of radiation poisoning."

"Well when you put it like that," Rukia replied in monotone, "What are we waiting for?"

Ichigo chuckled as he enabled the override on the deflector output and set it to maximum. He could feel the hair along his arms begin to stand up as the skin of the ship nearly began to buzz with electrostatic energy. "Load up the astrometrics system now, we won't be able to use it in a minute."

Rukia flicked a few controls before sighing. "You sure this is the only way to get to the inner orbits undetected?"

"Nope, but it's all I've got at the moment. You ready?"

"... Yes."

At her word, Ichigo tilted the ship and angled in line directly behind their speeding comet, the thick trail of ice and dust quickly obscuring the canopy and blotting out the stars as it reacted with the deflector field. Flying by instruments alone, Ichigo adjusted their course and speed to match the comet's path, tucking them in close to obscure their mass signature and sensor cross-section.

"Deflector system is holding steady," she noted. "But you were right, sensors and astrometrics are all but useless. We're flying blind."

"But undetectable," he pointed out.

"Theoretically undetectable."

"Well we'll have plenty of time to test that theory as we make our way towards Inzuri hidden in the tail of the Kuchiki-Kurosaki comet, won't we?"

Rukia rolled her eyes at the name of their supposed comet and examined the astrometrics system, still loaded with data from before they entered the cometary tail. "Am I reading this right? This comet is going to crash?"

"Yeah," Ichigo said with a shrug. "Can't have a rogue comet speeding around the system, who knows where it could go?"

"So you're going to crash it into one of the suns?" Rukia didn't know why, but she felt a little sad that their comet was going to plunge into the sun.

"Yeah, Reishi or Reiatsu. Whichever is the one on the left, I can never keep them straight," he said, mock seriously.

"Once again, I am filled with confidence that you are driving the ship," replied in kind. She was about to continue but halted as she caught sight of the deflector system effect on the nose of the ship. "Ichigo, can you nose down the ship about thirteen degrees without altering our course?" she asked, her voice going soft.

Shrugging, he complied, putting more of the canopy surface in line with the dust stream coming off the comet. Instead of reacting with the deflector at the tip of the nose, the dust and ice was now impacting and sliding across the clear canopy above them, the blue-white energy reactions rippling and blossoming in a dazzling display.

Rukia shut off the running lights in the cabin before sitting back to gaze at the deflector reaction effect above them. The particles sent waves of glowing light rippling out in concentric rings as they hit the ship, the different masses and compositions resulting in slightly varied effects and hues, all culminating in an enchanting spectacle of light and motion.

"There must be some phosphorus or magnes-"

"Shhh," Rukia hushed. "It's like rain... but made of light."

* * *

Detective Toshiro Hitsugaya crouched down in the clearing, looking hard at the three landing-strut shaped indentations pressed into the ground, then over at the three severed landing struts themselves lying haphazardly next to him. He tore a few blades of grass from the ground, rolled them between his fingers, then casually tossed them into the air. "Residual I-Grav emissions," he said, noting the odd way the blades danced. It was clear a ship took off from here, and not too long ago. He turned to his partner to find her gazing awestruck around the interior of the overgrown asteroid.

"Would you look at this place Captain? It's amazing!" she said enthusiastically, her chest heaving as she took in a deep breath of the fresh air inside the asteroid while looking around at the expanse of lush vegetation.

"Careful Rangiku, you'll tear your uniform," he muttered back at her, stooping low to examine one of the three severed landing struts lying in the grass. He heard her snort in response as he scanned one of the strut's manufacture points, bringing up the identification and serial codes in his neural link.

"C'mon Captain," she wheedled, "We're so far outside our jurisdiction, can't we just take it easy?"

"No," he replied, his patience thinning. "Our orders supersede the boundaries of the Tenth Precinct."

"That is correct, Detective Hitsugaya," spoke a cold, emotionless voice as a figure walked across the clearing towards them.

Toshiro shielded his eyes as he watched her silhouette approach. He knew her outline by now, that of compact, athletic woman, but he also knew the reality of her true body. As she moved into the light, the transition was no less disquieting but he managed to keep his stern, serious and utterly professional expression intact.

"Have you found anything of note?" She came to a stop before him, pinning him under the stare of her miss-matched eyes, one normal and the other cybernetic, glowing a fierce ruby red. She crossed her arms, also miss-matched, but stood impossibly still and utterly balanced on her cybernetic legs. The fact that none of her cybernetic augmentations made any noise spoke volumes of their build quality and integration level.

"Yes, Commander Soi-Fon." He held up his hand, a glowing public display appearing above it. "The ident codes on these struts match those on the ordering invoices obtained from the hangar on Karakura station where the ship was serviced. They were here, probably to remove these broken landing struts."

"How long ago?"

"No more than eight hours, it's possible we may have just missed them."

"Has your astrometrics officer been able to determine the course they took upon exiting this..." she looked around uncomfortably, "Habitat."

"Only that they traveled deeper into the ice belt. Given time, he is confident that he can compensate for scan diffusion and determine their location."

"Time, Detectives," she replied coldly, glancing at them from her narrowed eyes as she turned to head back to the shuttle, "Is something we are running short of. We should return to the _Hyorin Maru_ as soon as possible to get underway."

Rangiku watched her walk away, her movements measured and precise, an interplay not of muscle, but of finely tuned machines. "Recons give me the willies. Partial recons are the worst, I mean, with full recons you can kinda pretend they're inside a hardsuit or something." She shuddered.

Pointedly ignoring her talk of partial versus full reconstruction cybernetics, Toshiro narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, considering their next course of action.

"Hey Captain," Rangiku said, a finger on her pursed lips. "Does it seem weird that she's in such a hurry?"

Toshiro glanced at her before looking back towards their shuttle and the retreating figure of the Shihoin House's head of security, finding himself thinking along the same line of reasoning. Soi-Fon may be single minded and dedicated to her pursuit of the rogue Shihoin noble, which was partially the reason she had been teamed with two patrol force detectives, but it didn't explain the timetable the augmented commander had demanded.

"Let's go, Matsumoto," he said, heading back to the shuttle. Rangiku was more perceptive than anyone gave her credit for, something she tended to purposefully reinforce, and he once again had to remind himself not to be taken in by her act, however annoying it may be.

* * *

Omake Act 1, Scene 1:  
Ichigo and Rukia are standing in front of a chalkboard with eighteen concentric circles drawn on it.

Rukia: Hi there! Welcome to Astrography 101!

Ichigo: Since Triple-H likes to name drop the different planets in our solar system without much in the way of explanation, we thought we'd let you guys in on just how it's all set up.

Rukia: As you may have picked up along the way, our solar system has eighteen planets all orbiting a binary star pair, and this chapter let you know the names of the two stars, Reishi and Reiatsu.

Ichigo: That was about as clever as the phrase 'solar society', Trip.

Rukia: I thought that was pretty funny. Regardless, we're going to cover the names of the planets and give a brief description of some of the more interesting ones.

Ichigo: With eighteen, not all of them are interesting.

Rukia: Hey, binary stars are cool and science fictiony, but since Triple-Helix takes himself so seriously, he had to account for the fact that two stars command quite a lot of stellar material.

Ichigo: I think he just wanted to flex his nerd muscles and make a big ass solar system.

Rukia: Anyway, the phrase 'Central Four-and-Six' is used pretty often as well. This is the ruling parliamentary government of the solar system, and named for the four inhabited planets and six inhabited moons that comprise the seat of civilization in the inner orbits.

Ichigo: Obviously, not every planet in the inner orbits is suitable for life. The first two that are closest to the suns, Viisu and Polgutan, are uninhabitable as they're mostly rock and metal with little to no atmosphere.

Rukia: Kinda like you're head, Ichigo. The third orbit is Memoyo, which is perpetually covered in a thick cloud layer and is the first inhabited planet, though it has the lowest population of any other member of the parliament, and the people live in enclosed habitats.

Ichigo: They also live underground. Like mole people. Memoy-mole people.

Rukia: Next is Tsuugai. Tsuugai is a weird place, as most of the actual planet has been strip-mined and excavated, then re-built with infrastructure. Whatever natural planet that's left, and there isn't much of it, is barren desert rock. It's like the whole planet is one big city that stretches for miles in every direction.

Ichigo: The fifth orbit is Myu'jo, which is uninhabited and just about as opposite from Tsuugai as you can get.

Rukia: It's entirely covered by ocean! It's basically a big blue ball.

Ichigo: -snicker-

Rukia: -realization, flustered pause- Moving on. The sixth planet, as we talked about in this chapter, is Inzuri. We'll be heading there in chapters 22 and 23, so we'll talk about it when we get there.

Ichigo: The last three planets are Naburess, which has a caustic, poisonous sulphur atmosphere; Shishuro, which is a supermassive terrestrial planet covered by jungle and ocean where everyone uses sustainable energy and properly sorts their recycling; and Gokan, which way too volcanic to even land on, much less terraform.

Rukia: So those are the inner orbits. Separating them from the outer orbits is the Rukongai asteroid belt and Karakura Station. We talked about it back in chapter 2 or 3.

Ichigo: Next are the six gas giants, the two ice giants, and the last planet, although whether the last one is really a planet is hotly debated.

Rukia: Heh, that's funny. It's hotly debated but it's mostly ice... -crickets chirping-

Ichigo: The gas giants aren't all that interesting themselves, being gas and all. It's their moons which are more important to the story. Incidentally, I can't believe Trip came up with all these names of planets and then totally failed to name their moons, instead he just indexed them by number. -cups his hands to his mouth- Failure.

Rukia: The outer orbit gas giants, in order, are Junrinan, Funakei, Hokutan, Nagaken, Kyogoku, and Unarrai. Don't try to read in too deep to what each one could be translated as, Triple just made them to sound similar to the Soul Society district names from canon, Inzuri, Junrinan and Hokutan.

Ichigo: The last two are ice giants, Toketein and Koriboru, followed by the ice belt that we hung out in these last two chapters. On the other side of the ice belt is the last planet, Ejji, and then the Rim, which is what we call our Kuiper Belt. It's like a great big field of scattered, leftover material from the formation of the solar system that extends all the way out to our Oort Cloud.

Rukia: Some people don't consider Ejji a proper planet, but a dwarf planet, and that the Rim actually starts at the ice belt. They are obviously mistaken.

Ichigo: I don't know, Ejji doesn't quite have the mass to be consid-

Rukia: Obviously mistaken!

Ichigo: -clamps his mouth shut-

Rukia: So that's the end of chapter 21, thanks for reading and we'll see you in chapter 22!

-Rukia and Ichigo walk off stage as the lights go down-

Ichigo: You know, I've always kinda wondered why Trip measures things in AU's... It's the distance between Earth and the Sun, but we don't have an Earth in our solar system...

Rukia: Way to go, pointing out an inconsistency... Now he's gonna totally obsess over coming up with a plausible explanation and forget to develop the interpersonal relationships of the characters, idiot.

Ichigo: Interpersonal relationships, like...?

Rukia: -holds up a bright yellow fruit-

Ichigo: Shit. Trip, forget I said anything!


	22. Part 1: The Plan

Swirls of cool, blue light swam across her body, bathing her ivory skin in a soft luminescence even as it was swallowed up by her ink black hair. With her eyes closed and lips parted, her fingers buried in her own raven locks, she savored every heated sensation even as they ebbed away, leaving her feeling flushed and infused with warmth.

"Mmmmm," Rukia said, stretching languidly before pulling herself down atop him. "That was fun," she added before kissing him soundly.

Ichigo let his hands roam from her waist and up the sweep of her back, enjoying the sensation of her body pressed so tightly against his chest. "I'll have to remember how much you like the rain," he said as their lips parted, Rukia sliding to the side and twining her leg around his, lying next to him on the reclined pilot's station.

She glanced back up above them, watching the softly blossoming plumes of blue light ripple like rainfall across the canopy. "I suppose I should put a flightsuit on," she sighed, toying with one of the straps on the chair. "Dresses simply do not work in zero-G."

"I dunno," Ichigo said lightly, holding onto her to keep her close as he watched said dress floating around the rear of the cabin. "Seems like they work just fine to me."

She rolled her eyes but remained comfortably enfolded by his arms. The feeling of being held, with no ulterior motives or expectations, was something she was beginning to enjoy. "Ichigo," she began, breaking the silence that had settled over them, "Tell me more about your family." She heard him scoff at her request but his eyes softened as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Family was important to him, she had gathered, and some part of her wanted it to be important to her.

"Why do you want to know about them?"

"Just tell me," she said, letting waspish irritation creep into her voice as she gave him a light poke in the chest.

"Alright, alright," he chuckled. "Let's see... My sisters, Karin's the more serious one, even though she still swings up onto the bridge from the doorjamb. She'd be a good pilot if she gave it half a try, she has the reflexes and instincts, but she's usually happy to just sit in the secondary station and leave it to me."

"Does she run sensors or astrometrics or T-A ever?"

"The _Masaki_ is a medical ship, we don't have a threat assessment system, but yeah, I suppose she must do that other stuff," Ichigo muttered, thinking back. "The data and results were already loaded most of the time I needed them."

"She's a good bridge officer then."

"Heh, I always just assumed she was playing a game or something. My other sister, Yuzu, she's the one who kinda took over family stuff after... You know, she watches out for us, gets on our cases when it's our turn to clean, cooks, makes sure the clinic is prepped and ready."

"Big responsibility for a teenager," Rukia noted. "Not much time leftover to be a kid, for either of your sisters, it sounds like."

"Yeah..."

"You too, you know. I _suppose_ you have a decent amount of raw talent," she huffed as if bored, teasingly tracing her fingers across his chest, "But you must've studied spatial flight systems at some point."

"'Til my eyes were burning," he admitted ruefully, before adding in a quieter tone, "I didn't like to sleep much, so I just kept reading."

Rukia glanced at his neck, the faint circular scars hidden in the wash of blue light, but she knew they were there. "What about your dad? Did you mean what you said earlier?"

"About him being unfit to teach anyone anything?"

"No, about me meeting him..."

"Oh, yeah. When we get this whole thing figured out," Ichigo said, "I can introduce you to them." Rukia unwrapped her legs from his and slipped out of his grasp, propelling herself over her station and into the rear of the cabin. "You know, if you want..." he added, watching her go. With her ink black hair unbound and streaming out behind her, her slender body lit by the shimmering blue shell of the deflector system through the canopy, it was almost like was swimming away from him.

She didn't respond, instead she opened one of the cabinets in the back and looked through the contents, rummaging around before pulling out one of her black flightsuits along with underwear and a new pressure shirt. "That'd be nice, meeting a normal family," she finally said, holding the mass of clothing to her chest. Looking up, she gave him a small smile to soothe his perplexed expression at her silent withdrawal. "C'mon, we have a system status check to run."

"I suppose being a noble must make things..." Ichigo looked for the right word as he fumbled for his pants. "Different."

Rukia considered how to respond as she dressed, finally looking to see him floating between his station and the canopy, pulling his pants up his legs and trying not to hit his head on anything. "Yes," she said simply, a smile curving her lips as she considered the obvious differences between Ichigo and her brother. She doubted he'd ever even allow himself to be subjected to zero gravity, much less float around awkwardly or get twisted up in his clothing.

"So what's it like?"

His question shook her from her musings. "What... do you mean?"

Zipping his pants up and snatching his shirt from underneath his consoles, he looked back over at her. "What's it like, being a noble?"

"I..." Rukia stumbled, trying to put the situation into words. She took a long pause before saying, "I'm really not the best person to ask. Propriety and discretion were very important to my brother, and it was paramount that I hold them to be important as well. I did my best but..."

"But it wasn't the real you."

"The lessons in self control were useful, but my sister was the only one who really treated me the same as before, so I only had to play the part around others, like her husband..." Rukia said slowly, her eyes seeing long past memories instead of the ship around her, "Byakuya."

"Look, you don't have to go through it if you don't-" He saw her give her head a quick shake, looking up and meeting his eye.

Her hand clenched the material of her station chair as she looked away, "When my sister was still alive, I believe he tolerated me, for her sake... but after she passed away... he wasn't the same, no one was." She sighed, slipping around to sit at her station and idly bringing up a few ship monitor systems. "I was enrolled in the navy officer academy eventually, and afterwards I was transferred to the G-13. You know, I didn't even know how to have a normal superior-subordinate relationship until I became an operative in the thirteenth fleet?"

"Your brother sounds like real charming guy," Ichigo said sarcastically as he drifted over her into the rear cabin. "Can't wait to meet him."

Rukia turned to him, eyes widening. "No, I don't think that's such a good idea. The plan is we land on Inzuri, get inside the manor, get the data from the mainframe and get out, without anyone knowing we were there."

"That doesn't sound like a very well thought out plan. He's your brother, I know it sounds like you two don't exactly get along but you'd think he'd want to help us out."

"You don't understand," she reasoned, shaking her head in sincerity. "By now, the crimes that we've been framed for will be all over the news. The navy won't have a choice but to launch an inquiry into any involvement my brother's house may have had. Don't you get it? I know what kind of person my brother is, and there's no way he'll lift a finger to help us." Her fingers stilled over her consoles as she came to a conclusion. "We've been labeled enemies of the state and the penalty for at least some of our alleged crimes is death, given the option I'm sure he'd rather kill us himself, just to spare further embarrassment."

Pulling his shirt over his head, Ichigo was pensive for a moment, his brows pulled into a deeper frown than normal. "They're going to question your brother, I suppose that only makes sense," he said, "Just like they'd question our friends and my family on Karakura Station."

"But that's good, right?" Rukia said, brightening. "They'll tell the navy that-"

"I was off station up until about a week before this whole thing started, with no logged flight plan and no one but my dad and sisters to say where I was. Not a very strong alibi, especially considering we started working together so soon after I arrived. They're going to look at that and say we didn't _start_ working together then, they'll say we've _been_ working together all this time."

Rukia rubbed her temple. "And they'll blow my cover on the station, talk to my roommate... Momo doesn't even know who I really am... I'm gone all the time at odd hours, what a nightmare." She breathed a defeated sigh as the realization set in that the situation involved so many more people than she had selfishly thought. _It's Ichigo and my problem, we'll deal with it,_ she had told herself. How shortsighted. Even if she had the opportunity, she didn't know how to begin to explain herself to his family. Not only that, she had betrayed Momo, brought shame to her brother, and probably ruined both of their lives. It was enough to twist her stomach into knots.

"Hey," he said, authority strengthening the simple word. "This isn't our fault."

"I know, but-"

"No buts," he said, turning back around to buckle into the pilot station. "We're going to find out who did this to us, get proof, and expose the whole thing to clear our names and nail the bastard, just like your C-O, Ukitake, ordered us to." He glanced over his shoulder with a significant look, "Is that clear, soldier?"

She let the corner of her lips twitch up at him and blew out her frustration. "Yes _sir_ ," she said crisply.

"You guys are gonna play sexy soldier now? You're animals!" Kon exclaimed of the cabin speaker. "Can you pleeeease uncover the interior camera?" he wheedled.

"No," they replied in unison.

* * *

The precise movements of her arms, the snap of her muscles and the rhythmic sequence of her fists hitting the bag, her body balanced on the balls of her feet, all controlling the explosions of force as she repeatedly aimed, fired, and hit her target. It was one of the few things in her life that could demand her total attention. Over and over, one-two, duck, three-four, weave. The constant pattern verged on hypnotic and Tatsuki welcomed the familiar intensity of training, anything to relieve her of the swirl of emotions that plagued her whenever she thought of the news and Ichigo. Over and over, confusion, anger, worry, heartache. That pattern was constant as well, and as much as she was loathe to admit it, it was also familiar. So she did the only thing she could to stave it off, but no matter how long she hit the bag, the feelings were still there when she stopped.

"Hey, Tatsuki!"

Panting, sweat dripping off her brow, the muscles across her shoulders and arms tensed and shaking, she wrapped her arms around the heavy bag to keep from falling over and closed her eyes, willing the voice calling her name to go away.

"C'mon Tats, I've been calling and calling," one of her teammates said, stepping closer and voice softening with concern. "You alright? Don't over do it, you'll wreck yourself."

"What do you want?" she asked, trying for an irritated snap but succeeding only in sounding exhausted.

"You got some visitors," her teammate said before shuffling out of the way.

Pushing her hair from her brow as she eased back to her feet, she looked over the two men walking towards her across the gym. Biting the end of the tape wrapped around one of her fists, she tugged it loose as they came to a stop. One of them was just station security, but the other was an actual patrol force member, his navy uniform crisp and pressed. She knew they'd be coming, sooner or later.

"Tatsuki Arisawa?" he asked. The rest of the gym had gone deathly quiet, her teammates trying and failing to unobtrusively watch the events unfold.

"Yeah," she replied, making a show of paying more attention to her wrapped fists than him.

"My name is Officer Tetsuzaemon Iba, I have a couple of questions for you," he said, holding out his hand to shake. In response, Tatsuki held up her still-taped up fists as if they should have been obvious.

Knowing she had thrown him off slightly, it was her turn to be caught off guard when he asked, "Could you characterize your relationship with a Mister..." he consulted a display in his hand, "Ichigo Kurosaki?"

 _Her relationship?_ she thought savagely. She didn't know how to answer, she didn't want to know how to answer. They were friends, weren't they? She'd been there for him when he needed it, just like she'd been there for Orihime when the two of them had broken up. It might have been a little different with Ichigo, sure, but he had wanted space and Orihime needed a friend.

She cracked her knuckles, remembering how weird it had been with her stuck in the middle, but that made sense too, right? It wasn't about obligation so much as loyalty, and Orihime had no one else to go to, and Ichigo was okay, he was always okay. Unshakable, constant, solid Ichigo. Until he wasn't. And then he was gone, off with his dad and sisters out to the rim and who knows where, leaving her to deal with his absence alone, like a dull ache you eventually learn to tolerate. She didn't know what it was, she didn't know what it meant, and she didn't want to go digging through it because she knew at best it would only frustrate and upset her. At worst, and with thoughts of Orihime's friendship fresh in her mind, she'd feel like a treacherous, selfish bitch.

She sighed, glaring at the officer and deciding to hold him responsible for her having to dredge up with how she felt, again. _Ichigo_ , she thought to herself, _If you make it out of this alive, I will kill you_.

* * *

"So this is... a movie?" she asked skeptically, watching as Ichigo set a shared display at the end of the cabin and lock it in place. "No optical overlay, it's going to play on that screen there? How's that work, it can't be in three-D?"

"Not everything should be in three-D," he chided. Floating back towards her, he pulled up the library of movie files he had in local storage and picked one of his favorites, hoping his degrading neural link wouldn't corrupt the datastream. Hooking himself into an anchor point next to Rukia, the two of them comfortably reclined together behind the tactical station while he activated the display screen and she handed him a measure of what they were sharing for lunch.

"I don't understand how this could be as good as a-"

"Shh," he scolded, pointing at the display as the opening scene began to play. "Just watch."

A sullen quirk to her lips, she glared at him but obediently quieted, watching the wide display across the cabin as they munched on freeze-dried microgravity rations and sipped water from leak-proof bottles. Despite her initial resistance, she found herself quickly engrossed in story unfolding on the display, to the point she didn't notice the chalky taste to the food or which water bottle belonged to whom. By the time the ending credits were rolling up the display, her head comfortably against his shoulder, she found she had a smile across her face and was about to ask if he had any others stored in his link when a chime began sounding from the front of the ship.

"We're passing the Rukongai asteroid belt, if my timing is correct," Ichigo explained. "Just a couple more hours to go. We should come up with a plan for how to handle landing on Inzuri and getting into the Kuchiki compound."

"Yeah, about that-" she began.

"Traffic control across the inner orbits is a lot more closely monitored," he continued, rubbing a finger thoughtfully across his chin. "I don't exactly know how we'd manage to enter atmo without attracting attention."

"I do," Rukia said confidently.

He looked up, confusion registering on his face. "About your plan from earlier, I just don't think-"

"Trust me," she smiled, a savage gleam in her eye, "I've thought of a better plan."

* * *

Slipping from behind the shadow of the tumbling comet, the small interceptor veered out of the long dust trail and the crackling shell of blue energy fell away as it moved into empty space. The panels across the consoles lit up as previously blinded or dark systems were activated, astrometrics, active sensors, and the comm system all streaming with data. In a blaze of blue-white light, the twin thrusters opened up to full burn and sent the ship streaking out into the night. With the ship's comms wide open and no way to mask the transponder designation, it didn't take long for them to be noticed.

Sitting on the bridge of the _Sogyo no Kotowari_ as it cruised slowly in the wake of the planet Gokan, a young technician sat at her consoles, sipping from a cup and watching the sensor readouts scan across the Rukongai asteroid belt and then through the inner orbits. Eyes glazing over from the endless monotony, she perked up as a signal flashed into view momentarily. Leaning forward, she adjusted the scan receivers, tracking back over the area she had seen the contact.

"No way," the technician muttered, seeing the designation flash up on her display. Swiveling around a little quicker than she needed to, knocking over a few empty cups and wrappers, she drew an odd look from her fellow technician at the other long-range monitoring station. The look shifted from annoyed to puzzled as she brought up the main sensor display that dominated the center of the bridge, the large panel glowing green and shifting holographic mode as she narrowed the scan. A green blip flared into existence, bright and strong, and detailed information began filling up the sensor context fields. "It is... I don't believe it."

The captain stepped up behind her station, peering inquisitively over her shoulder. "What is it, Kiyone?" he asked conversationally, a good-natured smile on his face.

"Ah, Captain Ukitake!" she exclaimed, surprised by his quiet appearance behind her. "A new contact suddenly appeared on sensors," she continued respectfully.

"Ah, well scramble the nearest operative to intercept," he replied, "And give course adjustment orders to any nearby civilian ships." He moved to walk on down the bridge, musing, "Hollows are pushing further and further into the inner orbits..."

"No Captain," Kiyone said tentatively, "It's not a Hollow contact, it's a friendly." She watched him stop and take a closer look at the main sensor display, the smile slipping from his face. "It's Snow White's ship, the _Sode no Shirayuki_."

"Rukia, what are you doing?" Jushiro breathed, watching the green blip moving slowly across the display.

"The ship moved out from behind the comet that's moving through the system, Captain!" spoke up the other technician, not to be outdone. "Current course suggests she's heading for Inzuri."

"That's obvious Sentaro!" Kiyone fumed, "Don't waste the Captain's time!"

"Hiding in a cometary trail," Jushiro chuckled appreciably to himself, ignoring the argument brewing between his two lieutenants. "But why are you sprinting for your brother's house? You should know he won't protect you..." His dark eyes narrowed on the display screen. "Lieutenant Kotetsu, which squadron has been assigned to Kuchiki security?"

She and Sentaro immediately quieted at the commanding edge in his voice, Kiyone's fingers skimming over her controls as her brow furrowed in concentration. "The... Eleventh Marine Detachment," she answered, "They've already been sortied to intercept."

"Should the contact be reported to central command?" Sentaro asked reluctantly.

"No," Jushiro answered after a pause. "We'll need to confirm before we do anything. Spin the main engines up and set course for Inzuri."

* * *

Streaking through the darkness of space, seven forms went hurtling through the night, each trailing a bright, blue-white engine wash. Encased in colonial space marine assault hardsuits, fitted with short range cruising engines and combat-ready flight control systems, each of them had enough firepower to level a decently sized colony single-handedly. At present, all that firepower was leveled at the small white interceptor flying at full burn, trying to get away from them.

"It's our lucky day boys, I've got point. Form up on me and let's try not take all damn day with this," said the flight leader, 'Q-Ball' stenciled across one of his hardsuit's deep green shoulder plates.

The interceptor veered sharply, trying to gain distance by forcing them to course-correct, but the marines were too agile. What EVA hardsuits sacrificed in range, they more than made up for in thrust-to-mass ratio. All the maneuver accomplished was to let the marines close distance on the _Sode no Shirayuki_.

Inside the helmet of his hardsuit, his vision overlaid with flight information and weapon status readouts, the flight leader smiled grimly as the targeting reticle moved across his eye and bracketed the ship. His smile faltered as he checked his wingman monitors, one in particular making his thin lips quirk in annoyance. "Stache, you want to tell me why your guns are hot?"

"What? Uh, you mean they're not supposed to-"

"Goddammit, our orders are to apprehend, dumbass, not destroy... unless we're fired on, 'course," he added as an afterthought. "But this ain't no combat ship, look at it, just some fancy little thing built for speed. This mission is a snatch and shackle, non-lethal ordinance unless I give a weapons free, you got that?"

"Yes, sir," came the chorus of replies over the comm, some respectful, some annoyed. Before he could address anyone else specifically, they were within range. "Alright, let's go," he said, switching the hardsuit from cruising mode to combat readiness, control surfaces angling into position across his legs and shoulders. With the precision and surety that only comes from extensive experience, the marine hardsuits peeled off from formation and spread into a standard intercept dispersion, arranged to prevent the target from turning too far in any direction. Q-Ball twisted his throttle and poured on the speed, the thrusters at his back flaring brighter and pushing him faster into firing range.

"To the ship designated as the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , this is Sergeant Ikkaku Madarame of the Eleventh Marine Spaceborne Detachment. You are ordered to stand down immediately, you will only get one warning." Q-Ball watched the control surfaces on the interceptor switch to full extension before sighing and shaking his head. "Dumb fuck, just made our job easier," he muttered to himself before opening the comms to his wingmen. "I want DEMPs on those control systems, word is this chick picked up some civvie who can fly, so shut his ass down," he ordered, flexing the articulated fingers of his hardsuit hands around the grip of his main weapon and raising it to his shoulder, syncing it to his targeting display.

Many people thought that the primary armament of military hardsuits was anachronistic, why develop a suit of robotic powered armor and then proceed to arm it as you would any infantry soldier? Military leadership felt the look was too iconic to ignore while military designers were quick to point out that the weapon was not the hardsuit's sole offensive system and that the pilots, soldiers themselves, felt more confident with a uniform combat experience, both inside and outside the hardsuit. The weapon itself, an over-under style, immensely oversized assault rifle, was really two weapons in one. The primary mode, a large bore Gauss rifle, used the top barrel while the Directed Electro-Magnetic Pulse mode used the lower rails.

Ikkaku personally thought that DEMPs were boring as he activated the secondary mode, a pitched whine humming through his helmet as the capacitors charged up. Seeing the end of this little chase fast approaching, he sighed as he took aim at the trailing attitude control of the starboard wing and fired, the whine vanishing. Obviously, since it didn't fire a projectile, just a pulse of electromagnetic energy, there was no direct feedback on if you hit your target or not, but Ikkaku had been sure his aim was true.

Therefore, he was surprised to see the ship had rolled to evade, protecting the control surface at the last second. "So it's going to be like that, huh?" He recharged his assault rifle while waving his wingmen to engage. Smirking, he figured the pilot of that interceptor must've just gotten lucky, no way he'd be able to avoid six more shots. His jaw slackened as he watched the ship dip, roll and weave in a complex display of spatial maneuvering, managing to only loose a single control surface along the lower central fin.

"Who the hell is this guy?" muttered one of his wingmen over the comms.

"Does it matter?" Ikkaku asked, a note of glee slipping into his voice. "Looks like he's going to give us a workout after all!" As the marines swarmed the interceptor it didn't matter how intricate or complicated its evasive maneuvers were, as more and more of the control surfaces were rendered inoperable by EMP blasts, the ship became more and more crippled. By the end Ikkaku felt almost remorseful as he planted his heavy feet onto the top of the ship, wishing he had waved his wingmen off as he magnetically sealed himself to the armored plates. Whoever he was, it was obvious this pilot could pose a real challenge one on one.

"Play time's over," Q-Ball said, reaching down and clamping a large device onto the ship. The blue-white light from the thrusters fizzled and died away as the shackle rendered the main systems of the ship inert, reactor offline, power plant shut down, engine and weapon systems all but useless. "Nice flying, while it lasted. Wonder what you'd be capable of if ya had guns, but then it would've been a shame to tear ya apart, not that anyone'd be able to tell the difference. Man, this thing is beat to shit," he muttered, looking around at the numerous laser burns, minor tears in the armor plating, and the rebuilt winglet. He shrugged, the heavy plated shoulders of his hardsuit moving with the motion. "Well, let's get a look at your face," he said, taking heavy clamping steps down the fuselage toward the canopy.

"What the hell?" he said, bending down to stare into the ship. Pilot's station, tactical station, rear cabin area: all empty. The interior was small, and moving around to get a better angle just confirmed his assessment, no one was aboard.

"What is it, Sergeant?"

His wingmen had formed a loose perimeter around the disabled ship, minor flashes from their control surfaces flickering across the few unblemished white panels. "The ship's empty," he said, realization dawning, "They were flying it by remote." Grinding his teeth in frustration, his train of thought led him to the obvious consequence. "This was a distraction," he growled into his comm. "Get S-WACS in here. Now!" he barked, pointing out different marines. "You three, chase down that fucking comet and run engine wash sweeps, find the source of the control signal coming to this ship and get S-WACS to confirm." He swept a mechanical finger at the marine he had addressed earlier. "You."

"Me?" Stache said meekly.

"Yes you Aramaki, tow this fucking thing out of my sight. Get it back to base and impound it, keep it shackled, fucking _sit_ on it if you have to. Just don't let it out of your sight until the P-F detectives show up. You other two, you're with me. Wide area sweep, one light-second range, move it marines!"

The hardsuits broke formation, their engines blazing with light, and left Stache alone with the lifeless white ship. "It's my lucky day," he muttered to himself, mimicking Q-Ball's earlier tone as he drew a heavy tethering cable from a compartment at his back and attached it to a service point on the nose of the ship. Continuing to mutter uncomplimentary things about his flight leader, he began the slow, arduous task of towing the ship back to their base. It took a long while for the hardsuit engines to accelerate the combined mass up to speed and by the time he arrived at the marine's base of operation, the colonial heavy cruiser _Demon Light_ , he was tired and irritable.

Pushing the ship roughly into a service cradle set up on the spacedock and moving through the big blastdoors onto the relatively empty drydock, he noticed the flight leader and the rest of the patrol had still not returned. "Well, what Ikkaku doesn't know won't hurt him," he said as he stood on his hardsuit service platform and disengaged the seals with a hiss. The torso of the hardsuit levered open as the thick armor plating down the legs swung wide. Unbuckling himself, he stepped down from the padded interior and quickly made his way across the drydock, towards the bathroom.

The ship was still for a long moment until one of the outside cameras quietly whirred, pivoting in its housing as it swept over the drydock. Focusing on a few technicians that were going over the newly returned hardsuit, then over towards a couple walking past on an elevated catwalk, the light glinted off the small lens. "Okay," Kon whispered over the cabin speakers once everyone was sufficiently far enough away or otherwise occupied. "Head to the right when you get out, the locker rooms and debriefing areas are through that door. The coast is clear, go now!"

A hiss and clunk later, two of the landing gear manifold doors along the bottom of the ship broke their airtight seals and swung open, Ichigo and Rukia pushing them apart from within. Dropping down to the hangar floor, their eyes met briefly before they moved as quickly and quietly as they could in the direction Kon told them. Slipping inside the darkened room, Ichigo allowed himself a small smile as he pressed a control to slide the locker room blastdoor closed. The smile vanished as he saw the marine who had towed the ship walk back out onto the drydock floor, his lank ash-black hair and moustache framing a surly but beaten-down face. His breath trapped in his throat and certain the marine would see him through the open door, the pause before the door slid firmly shut felt interminable. Thankfully, the marine never turned around and as Ichigo faced Rukia, he told himself that they were in no position secure enough to smile about.

"Okay, so far, everything's going according to plan," Rukia whispered, ignoring the lockers beneath the Space Marine Corps logo while testing each one beneath the Naval Flight Crew logo. They were all locked. She could feel her heart racing but she was managing to remain composed, confident. Planning this course of action while nestled snugly in the security of Ichigo's arms was one thing, but the reality of being here in the heart of the inner orbits where the government had named them criminals and surrounded by soldiers who would just as soon shoot them as arrest them, was another.

"All we've done is get ourselves captured, sort of," Ichigo pointed out, also testing a few lockers.

"We're not captured until they know we're here, and they're not going to know we're here so long as we can get," the door in her hand popped and swung wide, "A locker open." She shot him a smug look as she pulled out one of the olive green marine flightsuits and a helmet. "Corporal Ferro," she read from the stenciling on the locker, holding out the flightsuit and figuring it to be about her size.

Ichigo, shaking his head and unwilling to believe he'd have the same amount of luck, opened up his neural link and activated his keyring. Laying a finger on the lock pad of the nearest door, he flicked through his stored keys, not really expecting any of them to work. None of them did. It was when he noticed the edges of his keyring display beginning to fuzz and flicker that he got the idea. "Stand back a bit, I've never tried doing this on purpose," he suggested, focusing on his neural link.

No, don't focus on it. Withdraw from it, he realized. Releasing the constant, subconscious control he'd wrapped so tightly around it was more difficult than he expected, forcing him to close his eyes tighter and tighter. He felt the link, already fragile and tenuous, begin to grow increasingly unstable without his guidance. Like it was throwing sparks inside his mind, he ground his teeth and held out as the static began to roar in his ears and his eyes felt stabbed by shards of glass.

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked tentatively, watching him clench his teeth and keep his eyes firmly shut. A flash beside him, followed by a chorus of popping clanks, drew her attention. Ichigo's finger slid away from the lock pad leaving a nasty oval shaped scorch mark in its wake while the locker door, and every locker door down the row from him, all swung open. Mouth slightly agape, she looked back at him and sucked in a breath before she could stop herself.

"Hey! It worked!" he said, rubbing his dry eyes as he pulled out a matching green flightsuit and helmet. Noticing Rukia's gasp and look, he turned back her. "What?"

"N-nothing," she managed to eke out, "Get changed, quick." She busied herself getting out of her black flightsuit and into the green one, telling herself it was just another trick of the light. She stole a glance at him, relieved that he was still apparently normal. Chocolate brown eyes, slightly reddened, his mouth a hard line, his jaw tight, his brows knit into his perpetual scowl. Yes, just a trick of the light she told herself, it simply wasn't possible for his eyes to have turned coal black.

After stuffing their clothes away where they wouldn't be easily found and closing the lockers, Ichigo pulled the helmet down over his head and concealed his distinctive orange spikes. Sliding the visor down over his eyes, he looked to Rukia for her opinion. The thick lenses extended halfway down his face and she figured he was basically indistinguishable from any other naval flight operator. Nodding in approval, Rukia removed a pair of old style aviator sunglasses from Ferro's locker and put them on, sliding her helmet on after.

"C'mon," she said, checking the name on his locker, "Spunkmeyer, all we need now is find a ride down to the planet. I'm sure it won't be too hard to find a shuttle or transport we can use." The two of them turned towards the door leading back out to the drydock but froze as it slid open, six angry looking marines stomping in. The last one, the light from overhead glinting off his shorn scalp and 'Madarame' written above the locker he banged open, looked for a second in their direction before another figure walked into the locker room from the opposite entrance.

"Another glorious day in the Corps."

The marines, grumbling and swearing, all fell silent as the voice rolled through the room like a slow boulder, rumbling and half-amused. Hazarding a look in the newcomer's direction, the briefest impression of him was enough to send Ichigo's eyes back to the interior of the locker. He towered over everything in the room, nearly as tall as one of the assault hardsuits on the drydock, and everything about him was black spiky hair and eyepatches and jagged facial scars and corded muscle.

And madness.

"A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm," he said, his heavy boots thudding against the deck. "Every meal's a banquet," he bent down to look one marine in the eye, "Every paycheck's a fortune." He stopped next to Madarame's locker, staring balefully down at him with his one uncovered eye. "Every formation's a parade," he finished lowly, "I love the Corps."

"Listen, Captain I-" Q-Ball tried to begin.

"Do you love the Corps, Ikkaku?"

"... Yes."

"Then shut up," he commanded, crossing his arms. "You got suckered, plain an' simple, so don't hand me any excuses." He bent down to level his head with the sergeant. "I only want to know one thing," he narrowed his eye at Madarame, "Can he fly?"

"Yes," Ikkaku answered, averting his eyes and staring out into space. "Whoever he is, he can move a ship like nobody I've ever seen."

"Good," he drawled as Ichigo glanced his way again, seeing his lips curve up into a smile. Perhaps smile was the wrong description for it, Ichigo considered. It was more like his mouth had pulled itself away from his teeth, doing what it could to distance itself from the sadistic venom that dripped from the word. This man was dangerous, he realized, and not in any conventional sense. If a gun or a knife in the wrong hands was dangerous, then this guy was like a brick wall across a transit lane.

"Listen up," he growled, stepping down the line. "New orders are in from the old man, we're planetside in twenty. Intel says the Kuchiki brat and her pet pilot are making a play for the brother, odds are she'll try to make contact as he's heading to the parliament. Orders are to play babysitter and wait for them to come to us, now fall out."

"You heard the Captain," Madarame said as the tower of the man stepped out onto the drydock, "Assholes and elbows, let's go!"

The smell of sweat filled the room as half the marines, weary from being confined in their hardsuits, stripped and re-dressed in fatigues and combat armor. Ichigo and Rukia, having secluded themselves to the side reserved for the flight crew, were surprised when Madarame barked out at them.

"At least you're on time for a change, now c'mon," he said, not even bothering to look in their direction. He was still angry about what happened, Ichigo realized, to the point where he was ignoring everything else. "We can't get down to the planet without the flight crew."

Rukia's head shot up, a spear of real trepidation shooting through her. The plan was only to find a runabout or shuttle on the way to down to the surface and talk their way aboard. As a last resort she felt confident she could fake a requisition, she was familiar enough with them after serving for so long in the G-13. She wanted to avoid attempting to steal anything as it would be risky and set off alarms, well more alarms than someone finding their discarded clothing. The idea of faking their way into a marine unit as the flight crew was totally out of the question, yet here they were, with little choice in the matter. Taking a steadying breath and forcing herself away from the surge of adrenalin, she stepped back from the feeling that her admittedly rickety plan was beginning to fall apart.

The marines filed back out of the locker room and onto the drydock, Ichigo and Rukia covering their uncertainty as they brought up the rear. "Was this part of your plan?" he whispered down to her.

Adjusting her glasses, she whispered back, "The hallmark of any great plan is adaptability."

Walking across the drydock and making every effort to look like they belonged, Ichigo and Rukia shot a few careful looks at the interceptor stuck in the maintenance cradle. A few technicians had wandered over and were pointing out various damaged areas, laughing and shaking their heads. It was all Rukia could do to keep moving, trying to focus on keeping up the charade as they walked through one of the large blastdoors and into the launch bay. There, a dozen massive, deep green colored and strictly utilitarian designed ships squatted low to the deck, their wings drawn in and weapon bays retracted. Far from the sleek lines and sculpted silhouette of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , these ships were built with only the vaguest nod toward aerodynamics, their chief design aesthetic primarily being riveted bulkheads, hard angles, and utter lethality.

"These are..." Ichigo muttered, stopping short and staring at the ships arrayed in the launch bay.

"Colonial space marine dropships," Rukia supplied, watching the column of marines meet their captain standing at the loading ramp of one of them, a couple technicians beckoning them to hurry as they released the locks on the dropship landing gear and perform last minute launch preparations. "Think you can fly it?"

Ichigo cracked his neck and stretched out his long fingers. "I can fly anything."

The two of them climbed up into the cockpit, thankful it was somewhat separated from the crew and cargo compartments in the back. The technicians drew the side airlock door closed, gave it a couple of dull pats that thudded through the bulkhead, and removed the access ladders as a service tug drove up and latched itself to their front landing gear. With a jerk, it quickly pulled them onto one of the launch bay doors and had barely disengaged when the entire platform rumbled and began to sink into the floor.

Rukia, her fingers flicking confidently over the controls at her station, caught his eye as the platform shuddered to a halt and the launch bay doors closed above them, sealing around the drop locks. Plunging them into near darkness, lit only by the consoles and displays around them, Ichigo could see her luminous blue-violet eyes even through her ridiculous sunglasses. The lock status indicator on the wall outside shifted from red to yellow to green, flooding the cockpit with light as the drop doors beneath them swung open.

Turning to pay attention to the comm chatter aimed in their direction, Ichigo shook his head at the thought they were actually getting away with this as he held a finger to a control to respond. "We read you, _C-H-C Demon Light_ ," he said. "Green light to disengage. Drop on my mark, Five. Four. Three," he heard someone say something from the rear of the ship, followed by a few scattered chuckles, but ignored it, "Two. One. Mark."

The drop lock bolts holding the ship slammed open and there was a brief moment as the ship slipped, ever so slowly, into free fall and down out of the launch bay. Just like the transition from the interior of the _Red Princess_ cargo hold to the blackness of space, the change from the launch bay compartment to the ship exterior was sudden and absolute. Only this time, instead of being met with the impenetrable blackness of endless space, the nose of the dropship tipped downward and the image of the planet Inzuri dominated the front of the canopy, almost incomprehensibly huge and unavoidable. They had just enough time to gaze in wonder at the enormous, beautiful planet before their stomachs lurched into their throats and the dropship plummeted downward.

Inzuri. A planet so fantastic and uniquely wondrous that it managed to stand apart from the rest of the solar system. A place where art, music, literature and education thrived in equal measure with advances in technology, medicine and business. A place where the sky is forever aglow with the colors of sunset, burnished oranges and saturated yellows, clouds edged in purple and the horizon inflamed in red. If the tight-knit population of the inner orbits and their parliament had an outlier community, a planet and her people just different enough, it would be Inzuri.

Some said the unique environment of the planet attracted those of a wider mindset, while others claimed that it actually fostered radical thinking. Whether that was true or not didn't really matter to Ichigo or Rukia as they shot down from the _Demon Light_ and towards the planet. They were far more concerned with navigating through Inzuri's complicated weather system, bouncing and dipping through the turbulence as they followed the flightpath that had been loaded into the dropship's nav system.

Unlike every other planet in the solar system, Inzuri did not spin like a top as it moved through its orbit. Rather it rolled like a ball with its northern axis tidally locked facing the twin stars and its southern axis perpetually facing out into the darkness of space. As a result, the dark half of the planet was covered almost entirely by an enormous glacier, and the temperature at the southern pole was more frigid than anywhere in the inner orbits. Conversely, nearest the northern pole on the light half of the planet was a desert so blisteringly hot and arid that the land itself had cracked and split apart like a huge wound, molten lava roiling at the depths of miles-deep canyons.

It was these two temperature extremes that affected the weather so significantly. The hot air rising from the suns-baked desert created a perpetual low pressure zone, drawing air away from the cold glacial side and across the surface of the planet. Halfway across the warmer light side, beyond the equator, the moisture from the glacier could manage to condense, but resulted in no ordinary rainstorm. In a thick band all the way around the planet, halfway between the equator and the pole, is the Squall. A super-hurricane, stretched into a ring that encircled the planet at what would ordinarily be the forty-fifth parallel and forever trapped between the unbearable heat of the pole on one side and the constant influx of cold, moist air on the other, it churned and raged with a thunderous intensity. Beneath it is the ocean, simultaneously fed by the never-ending storm and evaporating under the ceaseless heat from the suns. What additional water vapor that wasn't caught up adding fuel to the Squall rose high into the atmosphere to be carried back over to the dark side, were it eventually fell as snow.

There is no night and day on Inzuri, only the cold dark and the hot light, and centered between them along the thin, temperate band of the equator is the City. Twenty miles wide, the tips of its tallest skyscrapers spearing over a mile into the air and the entire thing built like an enormous wall wrapping entirely around the planet, the City divides Inzuri neatly in two. Far below in the lowest, industrial levels of the city are tunnels of huge turbines, their mouths open to the south to catch the wind that blows eternally from dark to light. Far above, the sky is always lit in the colors of twilight and anything with a shadow finds it thrown hard from light to dark.

Adjusting their angle of descent, Ichigo skimmed along through the upper atmosphere, light from the friction against the heat shields flickering at the edges of the canopy. Clearing a bank of puffy white clouds, the shining silver band of the city was visible, straddling the border between light and darkness. Far beyond, he could see the blue of the ocean as it sparkled in the suns, and above it rose the terrifying Squall line, forks of lightning flashing so bright he could see them even at this distance. Checking their landing location and figuring they had few minutes of privacy, he turned to Rukia when the turbulence began to lessen. "What did he mean, the parliament wanting to see your brother?"

She shrugged in response. "Most of the noble houses managed to hang on to honorary positions in government, advisors or councilmen, just like they did with the military before the naval expansion. That's probably all it is."

It was Ichigo's turn to shrug, seeing as how it ultimately wasn't going to affect their objective. He put it out of his mind and went back to guiding the heavy dropship towards the end of their flight path, terminating above a cluster of ornate, interconnected towers of silvery glass. The crosswinds and turbulence were making final descent tricky and he let the job consume his attention until Rukia spoke up again.

"What's our L-Z?"

"Don't have one," Ichigo replied, double checking the nav system. "Local traffic control is supposed to take over-" He winced as his comms began blaring. "Speak of the devil," he muttered, having to deal with an annoying voice in his ear identifying itself as the Kuchiki Corporation Head of Security. "I'm getting final landing instructions," he said to Rukia, "But why is the head of security for your brother's house doing traffic control?"

"That doesn't make any sense, they only do traffic control for-"

"We've just been cleared for landing," Ichigo interrupted. He took the the time to glance her way and point out the front before finishing, "There."

Perplexed, Rukia pulled off her sunglasses and looked clearly for the first time out the front viewport, immediately recognizing the skyline. Down at the end of their approach vector was the roof of the tallest tower around, looking for all the worlds like someone had removed its top-most spire of glass and steel and affixed a stately manor home and sculpted garden grounds in its place. To the side of the manicured grounds stood the familiar garage deck, complete with two landing pads and service station. Below, an enormous panel across the side of the building read 'Kuchiki Corp - Division 6'.

"When they said they were going to babysit my brother, I didn't think they were being literal," Rukia said before clapping a hand over her mouth, glancing back at the short passageway to the rear compartment. Between the noise of the engines, howl of the wind and din of conversation it looked like no one had heard her. The feeling that her plan was spiraling out of control returned again in full. The landing pads were heavily monitored by her brother's private security force, to get to the mainframe meant going down through the manor and there'd be no way to do that discreetly.

"We've got no choice but to continue with our mission," Ichigo said, lowering his voice. He watched her nod in agreement, adjusting her sunglasses as if she could hide behind them. Before they could discuss anything further, Ichigo was locked once again into relaying flight information to and from traffic control, and in a few minutes he was gently setting the dropship down onto the large landing pad marked with a clear B, the impressive edifice of the Kuchiki manor rising off to their side.

"This used to be your home?" he asked, staring at the mansion and the spires of the silver and glass city beyond.

"I used to live here," she answered quietly as the marines filed out the rear of the ship and fell into formation off the landing pad. "It wasn't ever my home."

Ichigo cycled down the engines and released the systems he had loaded to his neural link, but before he could release his restraints, the marine captain called out to them from the rear compartment. "Hey, you two about done landin' this hunk a junk? We got places to be."

"Y-yes sir," Rukia answered, busying herself with the controls and keeping her face turned away.

"Good, when yer done the head of security needs our clearance to take over, so here," he said, flicking a data store at her. "Hand that in. Meanwhile, flyboy, you're comin' with us," he said, his eye fixed on Ichigo. "I don't trust any one of these civvie pilots if we're gonna play guard dog to Stoneface Kuchiki himself." He moved back and stared out the window towards the sunset sky before looking back with a manic grin. "If his sister shows up with that pilot she's got a leash on, I'm gonna need someone who can fly at the wheel."

The two of them had just enough time to glance at each other, nod professionally, and see the abject alarm in each of their eyes before Ichigo ducked through the rear hatch to the crew compartment and Rukia scooped up the data store and clutched it in her hand. Splitting up was definitely not in the plan, and leaving Ichigo alone surrounded by trained marines without her as a buffer was tantamount to suicide. Still, what choice did she have but to try to salvage the rest of this mission and trust him not to get in over his head. Catching sight of him walking in the captain's wake, buckling on combat armor and a weapon harness, an assault rifle slung inexpertly over his back, she had the horrible thought she might not ever see him again. Slipping out the side airlock and down the ladder, she tried not to let herself get too rattled by the how deeply that thought had shaken her.

Planting her boots on the landing pad deck and flashing the official data store at the security guards, they waved her by saying where the security office was without a second look. She didn't recognize either of them, but she couldn't afford any scrutiny. Shifting her stride to the confident march of a trained soldier, she tried to reconcile how at odds it felt with the hammering of her heart and the cold sweat across her hands. At first she thought she was just nervous about trying to pull off this deception with such little preparation and a paper thin disguise, but it took until she was within reaching distance of the manor doors to realize she was still worried about Ichigo. Her brows furrowing slightly as the doors whisked aside, she did her best to lock that little bit of fear and doubt away, telling herself that Ichigo may be brash and impulsive but he's also resourceful and clever. More troubling, now that she thought about it, was the fact that this was weighing so heavily on her. Wasn't she the independent one? Hadn't she built a new life for herself with everyone at arm's length? Wasn't that the way she wanted it? This thing with Ichigo was just brought on by stress and mutual attraction and, sure, the sex was great for addressing those two things, but she couldn't allow this to become any more meaningful than that. Could she?

Stepping into the manor was like stepping back in time. The polished floors, the dark walls of true wood, even the art the Hisana had loved collecting, amateur and mismatched pieces at odds with the rest of the house, were all unchanged. Out of the view of private security, she slipped the data store into a pocket and removed her helmet, turning to walk down the well known halls from her youth. Everything about the place spoke of emptiness, lifelessness. Preserved like a tomb, it had that same sense of unwelcome and it permeated the cavernous halls and rooms. Suffocating in its airy vastness, she could feel the house as empty of people as it was full of memories.

Unable to bear it any further, Rukia hurried through the halls and eventually made her way to the estate's main library. She walked calmly inside and activated the concealed control system that opened up the lift that led down to one of the Kuchiki research centers and central data repository. He hadn't even changed the access code.

* * *

Following in the wake of Captain Zaraki's impressive stride, Ichigo tossed a look over his shoulder at relative salvation of the dropship as it retreated behind him. It would've been far simpler to just land at some public terminal, move up from the bottom of the building to the computer mainframe and then get out, either back to the transport or down to the public levels to disappear among the locals. Swinging around and reminding himself again to follow the plan, he glanced over the edge of the garage deck and realized just how dizzyingly high up they were. Watching the tiny shapes of hoverships skimming along criss-crossed elevated transit lanes far below, he nearly bumped into Zaraki's back at the foot of a white boarding ramp. Edging around, Ichigo took in the long shape of the luxury hovership awaiting them, the colors of twilight gleaming off its polished surface.

"A limousine?" Ichigo asked before adding a quick, "Sir?"

"Try not to get too attached, flyboy," the captain replied, "Security's beefed up for all these fancy ass nobles ever since those two chicks went rogue. Once this stupid guard duty shit is over you'll be back to driving us around in our limousine." He thumbed back over his shoulder at the beaten and scarred dropship with a grating chuckle.

"Ship secured, Captain," Madarame called down from the deck, his rifle held casually up onto his shoulder.

"'Course it is," Zaraki replied with a roll of his eyes, walking up the ramp. "Prep this thing for launch," he ordered at Ichigo over his shoulder, "Let's get this show on the road."

Walking up the ramp, Ichigo already felt more at home than he did on the ground, trying to carry the disguise of a trained marine. Ship pilot, now that was a role he was more than comfortable with. Studying it as he neared the command cabin, the hovership was about as big as one of the public commuter transports inside Karakura Station, but the aside from the fact that both were designed to skim along transit lanes, the similarities ended there. While commuter craft were squared off at the edges and designed to be functional rather than comfortable, this hovership was a marvel of aerodynamic engineering. Shining white, richly but tastefully appointed, sleek to the point it verged on sculpture, and dominated by an open air observation deck that ringed the entire ship, this hovership was affluence made physical.

Before he could duck into the cabin he caught motion out from behind the dropship and saw three marines walking towards him, each one closing up the armored chest plating of their assault hardsuits and checking the levels on their main weapons. The whine of powered joints and spin bearings sounded with each heavy, pounding step as they walked, coming to a halt off to the side. The sound of each of them chambering a round into their massive rifles echoed across the open garage deck with jarring clarity.

"Alright ladies," Zaraki called out from the deck, "Standard escort, you know the drill. If the Kuchiki girl is going to try to contact her brother, she'll do it soon. She's navy trained-"

Ichigo heard some of the marines scoff at this.

"Hey!" Zaraki shouted, "I ain't askin' for your opinions, I'm telling ya to do your jobs." He turned his eye down at Ichigo, "That includes you, flyboy. Quit gawkin', yer at the wheel."

Glad to be heading inside the command cabin and away from the marines arraying themselves on the deck of the hovership, Ichigo slid into the single station chair and blew a low whistle as he stared across the console. The smooth, featureless white console panes blossomed into artfully laid out control displays with a brush of his neural link. His fingers flicking over the glowing controls, queuing commands and checking systems, he paused as he heard the door of the cabin swish open. Glancing to his side, he only managed to catch the trailing edge of a fluttering silk scarf. Pale green and spotlessly immaculate, it was tossed about by the breeze through the cabin as the figure it was attached to slipped soundlessly past him, just out of view. Tossing a look over his shoulder, he noticed the man had somehow moved to the lavish sitting area, eyes askance and coolly composed in the comfortable captain's chair, as if walking was for lesser men. Sharply tailored in clothes more expensive than Ichigo could make in a year, he exuded an air of authority and confidence without even deigning to look his direction. There was no one else this man could be but Rukia's elder brother, Byakuya Kuchiki.

"Drive."

That was all it took and Ichigo could immediately recognize the similarity between he and Rukia. They may have been unrelated by blood but when they wanted something done, their posture, attitude and commanding, authoritarian tone were almost exactly the same. The difference, Ichigo realized as he caught the look in Byakuya's eye, was depth. Rukia had taken this sense of control and propriety and used it to build a frosty, anti-social shell. He had felt what simmered beneath it, the few private times she dropped the act and let it ignite a fire across their skin. Then again, if Rukia could be frosty, then Byakuya was glacial. If there was anything inside this man other than unfeeling ice, it was detached, clinical ruthlessness.

Ichigo faced forward, sounded the launch alert across the deck, spun up the I-Grav emitters and retracted the landing gear. Submitting a route clearance request to transit authority, he was surprised to find it come back immediately with a high level priority flightpath automatically approved. There was little else to do but push the throttle up to terrestrial cruising speed and slip the hovership into the first leg of the route, zipping past the manor house and out through the towering spires of glass and chrome.

* * *

Through the doors of the lift she took one last look at the library and let the scent of ancient, actual books linger in her nose. It had been one of Rukia's favorite rooms when she was younger, a place she could hide among the shelves and loose herself. There were thousands of volumes that lined the walls and the bizarre experience of holding actual printed pages instead of translucent, ephemeral display panes was something she marveled at. It had been a welcome mental escape when all other routes to physical freedom were gone, a place where she could go to selfishly forget the declining health of her sister and her role in the constant political intrigue of the noble families. As much as the place may have been a refuge, she was still ashamed she had run from the hopelessness and despair of her sister's pain while Byakuya; strong, vigilant Byakuya, had remained at her side.

The library closed out of sight and the lift slid noiselessly downward, far below the manor and into the Kuchiki House headquarters, eventually coming to a stop and opening onto a long, vacant hallway. Far away from the dust and age that had settled through the house, Rukia could detect the slight scent of antiseptic as she stepped off the lift, the familiar unadorned walls of featureless white and shining tiled floor of the softly lit hall feeling more like a hospital wing than a research compound. In a way, Rukia realized as she turned down the hall, both descriptions were apt. Her fingers lingered on the surface of one of the few side doors, the memory of her teenage self running from a room nearly identical to it, Hisana's medical information on a display on the wall, Byakuya watching from the doorway and then heading back inside, all replaying in her mind's eye as clear as the day it happened.

Sighing, she moved on down the hall to the room at the end, removing her own data store and rolling it in her fingers. The answers they needed were there in the Kuchiki mainframe, the one kept up to date with naval operations and ship distribution, including G-13 Hollow contacts and skirmishes. All she needed was a copy and to get out of there. Walking through the door as it slid aside, she had no idea another figure was shadowing her movements and was even now stepping silently down the hall twenty paces behind her.

The interior of the computer mainframe room was similar to the rest of the floor, coolly lit, pale white, and devoid of people. Rukia knew it would be, it was one of the reasons she thought getting the information from this terminal would be the most feasible. No one had used this data for years and Byakuya was content to just let it accumulate. He was more concerned with other ventures and had no time for anything to do with the navy. She grimaced as she thought about that, realizing how personal that statement could be. In the center of the room stood a cylindrical column, the only rounded surface she'd seen on this floor. Walking up to it and watching the mainframe come to life, it never failed to unnerve her. Above her, a dull red light swam beneath the surface of the white column, growing brighter until, like a pair of eyelids opening, the light resolved itself into a bright cherry red dot surrounded by a deeper, darker circle. The glowing red eye blinked a few times, then looked down at Rukia, making tiny, synthetic noises as its pupil grew and focused.

"Current user identity confirmed as Kuchiki, Rukia," echoed a voice around the chamber.

"Hey HAL," Rukia replied. "I need some information."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Rukia," HAL said, the voice going softer. "Records indicate current user as unauthorized, level one directives include immediate notification of security and apprehension by non-lethal means if possible."

"Probably so he watch my execution for treason," Rukia muttered to herself before turning back to the white column with the glowing red eye. "Security override, access code tango-one-tango-three-kilo-unit-bravo-zero." HAL wasn't quite an AI like Kon or Lirin, he was a virtual intelligence. He could think and deduce, but was incapable of true decision making or self-directed action. He was very powerful, but easy to control provided you knew how to do it.

"User Kuchiki, Rukia... authorized."

"Purge all active level one directives." A chime sounded throughout the room. "Open data archives, retrieve all records designated as 'naval ship distribution update'. Retrieve all records designated as 'G-13 contact update'. Collate current record set by timestamp." She placed the small data store against the column, letting the contact point adhere to the smooth surface. "Write current record set to local storage. Close data archives."

"Command sequence acknowledged," HAL replied. "Anticipated runtime of command, thirty two seconds."

"You are getting slow in your old age, HAL," Rukia began to say, but her mirth died on her lips as she saw a shadow of movement in the smooth white column. Spinning around, she gasped as she recognized the figure standing in the doorway, Byakuya's personal bodyguard. "Shit," she breathed. "What are you doing here?"

The figure, dressed from head to toe in form-fitting charcoal gray body armor, cocked the concealing facemask and helmet curiously before wagging a finger at her. "I could ask the same of you, you naughty thing."

"No," Rukia said, taking a cautious step to the side, "Why aren't you on the hovership, on the way to the capitol building with my brother?"

"He has enough security, surrounded by all those marines," the figure said, mirroring her step. "I was left here in case you showed up, and here you are."

"I don't want any trouble," Rukia said holding up a placating hand even as her other groped around her back looking for her weapon harness. She didn't have it, it was still on the _Sode no Shirayuki_. She was totally unarmed.

"I'm pretty sure it's too late for that," the bodyguard said, stretching out the fingers of the right glove. "Plenty of trouble to go around." From a housing in the forearm and sliding down tracks along the top of the fingers, four curved, sickle like blades locked into place on the fingertips of the glove.

Rukia gulped, recognizing the weapon. They weren't sharpened like ordinary knives, they were emblades. Honed to a mono-molecular edge, they could slice through anything as easily as tissue paper. "Level one directives said non-lethal apprehension," Rukia said, trying to buy time.

"Non-lethal doesn't mean uninjured," the bodyguard replied venomously, taking a measured step forward. "You'd be surprised to know what the body can do without and still manage to live through." The crackle of electricity echoed through the empty chamber as the edges of the bodyguard's armor became harder to distinguish.

"A glimmer-suit," Rukia said, watching the charcoal gray fade away, replaced by oddly shimmering white as the armor altered its reflectivity, blending in with its surroundings. Byakuya's bodyguard was expertly trained and Rukia knew she'd have a tough fight one-on-one if it came down to it, but her confidence was dwindling now she realized her opponent's body was going to be mostly obscured by the color shifting glimmer-suit. Well, two could play that game, she thought. "HAL, open environmental controls," Rukia said quickly, watching the ephemeral form of the bodyguard pause in confusion, then spring forward in realization. Rukia threw herself to the floor, yelling, "Set illumination levels to zero percent!"

The swish of air brushing past above set her hair dancing, the emblades slicing through a few trailing strands. Blinking furiously in the sudden gloom, she rolled to the side as she tore her flightsuit jacket from its seal and wrenched it open. Spotting the blurry shape rising from a crouch across the way, she drew the flightsuit jacket off her arms and weighed her limited options. She knew she was concealed in the shadows but it wouldn't last once the bodyguard's eyes adjusted. With only HAL's single red eye as a light source, the colors in the glimmer-suit were clumsily trying to incorporate it across the armor, splitting it into reds and yellows across the faceplate of the helmet, oranges across the shoulders. The perfect target, she realized.

Catching a shadow rushing out of the darkness, the bodyguard spun to face it, the blades along the fingers of the glove flicking out warningly, light glinting off their edges. The shadow didn't halt, just flew faster and the bodyguard had no choice but to defensively swipe across it. Snarling itself around the bladed hand of the armored glimmer-suit, the bodyguard looked down at the shadow and wondered what happened, right up until Rukia's heavy combat boot connected hard with the back of the helmet as she swung around the column of the mainframe.

Watching her opponent stumble forward, Rukia refused to relent her surprise advantage. A swift boot to the back of the knee had the bodyguard down and off-balance, and she followed it up with a vicious kick right between the shoulderblades, snapping the head back like a whiplash. Over the sound of the breath being knocked from the bodyguard's sprawling form Rukia heard the chime from HAL and snatched the data store from the mainframe before sprinting for the dark outline of the door.

"Set illumination levels to standard," the bodyguard ground out, fighting for breath. The lights immediately blazed back to life and the dark blot of Rukia could be seen running down the hall for the lift. Pushing back upright and moving to pursue, the bodyguard flicked the bladed glove and shredded the flightsuit jacket Rukia had thrown and tangled around the weapon, the tattered material falling to the floor.

Skidding to a halt at the entrance to the lift, Rukia hammered the control and dared to look back the way she came as the doors slid apart. The bodyguard was walking down the hall, unhurried and with arms to the sides, gently working the fingers of the right glove. The curved, talon-like blades danced through the air as the glimmer-suit mesmerizingly faded into background. With a chill, Rukia realized her opponent was in no hurry. There was only place Rukia could go, back to the dropship, and her opponent likely had faster and more direct routes to the garage deck than she did. Cursing, she ducked inside the lift and let it carry her back up to the library where no doubt a score of private security guards would likely be waiting for her.

* * *

The immense government building of the Central Four-and-Six loomed before him, and Ichigo stared through the viewport at the top where their destination awaited. It helped him ignore the hardsuits circling the hovership like vultures and even worse, the unmanned gravi-cams zipping around them like flies. Upon hearing a noble transport under military escort was flying through the city, the news agencies had immediately dispatched dozens of the annoying things to follow and record anything that happened. Giant displays and notice boards throughout the city had shifted from their usual programming and were even now showing live feeds of the long white limousine as reporters bantered about what would happen upon arriving at the parliament.

At the top of the towering structure and facing the northern sky was the parliament's main chamber and embarkation deck. Purposefully designed to be striking and impressive during public addresses, it held a commanding view of the ribbon of the city that stretched out to either side and the roiling, orange-red cloudscape along the horizon far to the north. Cleared for landing, Ichigo gratefully settled the long, sleek ship down on the center of the pad prominently situated at the foot of the steps leading up to the massive structure itself. Ichigo figured it was probably intentional too that anyone landing here, perched on the pinnacle of one of the tallest buildings around, still had to do so at the foot of the capitol building, dwarfed by its size and magnificence as it soaked in the light of ever-setting suns.

The marines on the deck outside didn't bother waiting for the boarding ramp to be extended, instead they simply vaulted to the ground and arrayed themselves in a loose perimeter, alert but nonthreatening. Lacing his fingers behind his helmet, intent on staying right where he was and looking forward to getting this whole thing over with, Ichigo was surprised to note a presence at his shoulder. Careful to keep his face neutral, he turned his head up towards the impassive face of Byakuya Kuchiki as he stared out the cabin windows at the parliament building.

"Come."

Getting tired of these one word orders but managing to swallow his pride, he stood to follow, remembering to sling the pulse rifle onto his back before stepping out the door after him. The hardsuited marines remained around the hovership while the others, including Captain Zaraki and Ichigo, fanned out around Byakuya as he walked calmly and sedately up the steps to the parliament doors. Gravi-cams were flitting about capturing the action while the reporters on the huge screens began talking much more animatedly as they discovered it was the elusive Byakuya Kuchiki making a public appearance. From the way they were guardedly talking about "the situation involving his sister," Ichigo was left wondering just how the story may have grown in the time they had cut themselves off from messaging and the news.

Upon reaching the landing at the top of the stairs a small crowd of various dignitaries and representatives had gathered on the platform, the area dominated by huge columns standing in rows down the front of the massive structure. Ichigo was paying more attention to walking in step with the other marines but still managed to catch the fact that the people parted before them like water at the prow of a ship, conversations dwindled to whispers and curious glances turned into unabashed stares. His eyes locked forward, paying no attention to the scattered but growing crowd around them as his pale green scarf fluttered in the breeze, Byakuya came to a halt before the ornate double doors as armed members of the patrol force flanking either side motioned them to stop.

"No weapons are permitted inside the chambers, sir."

"Your marines are all well trained, Captain Zaraki?" Byakuya asked, his voice clear though he had not bothered to look at in his direction. Zakarki scoffed as if the question didn't merit answering. "Then remain here with your men," he said, his eyes flicking back to the tall soldier off his shoulder. "I will have the pilot as my security detail from here onward, I am certain that being without a firearm should pose no problem to him."

Captain Zaraki looked like he was going to argue for a moment, curling a puzzled lip at Ichigo and then at Byakuya before figuring it wasn't worth his time. "Whatever," Zaraki shrugged. He and his men filed off to the side as the doors swung wide, Byakuya immediately moving forward again.

Ichigo surrendered his pulse rifle and sidearm to a glowering Ikkaku and did his best not grow too alarmed by the sudden turn of events, reasoning that even a noble couldn't be walking around the capitol building with a squad of armed marines in tow. Still, outside the security of a ship cockpit and with all the cameras and patrol force personnel around here, he would've preferred to stay in the background rather than run the risk of having someone see through his disguise. As they made their way inside, Ichigo realized this didn't appear to be a normal session of parliament. The place was packed. All around them, the tiers of the parliament seats were filled with stern faced men and women ensconced behind their big, imposing desks, while the floor seating was filled with knots of various officials from different interests, unions, coalitions, minor noble families, and dozens of others Ichigo couldn't hope to recognize.

There was a somber hush around the members of parliament, each of them a model of severity and restraint while the groups arrayed across the floor seating burst into excited whispering and hushed conversations, some individuals even trying to catch Byakuya's attention. The dichotomy of the two extremes was oddly unsettling. For a moment Ichigo thought this might be the formal inquiry Rukia had mentioned as her brother ascended one of a few central podiums. No, he concluded, as a chairman seated at the center opposite from Byakuya swept several displays from the air and rapped a gavel against a block, the sharp sound ringing out to silence the room and call for order.

This wasn't an inquiry, it was a proclamation of judgment.

"Sir Byakuya Kuchiki, this council appreciates your attendance today," began the man with the gavel. Standing off Byakuya's side at the bottom of the elevated podium, Ichigo could hear the slight in the man's tone, intentionally walking the line between polite and mocking. If it annoyed Ichigo he imagined that Rukia's brother would be insulted, but he remained as stoic and unshakable as ever.

"It is an honor to be in the presence of an assembly of such..." his eyes flicked up to the chairman, " _Esteemed_ councilmen." Byakuya folded his hands upon the podium as his low voice carried out through the hall, clear and cultured. In response to the chairman's tone, Byakuya was clearly firing back and even to Ichigo, his disregard for these proceedings was palpable. There were a few grumblings from around them as different councilmen leaned over to whisper conspiratorially to their neighbors.

"If only your contemporary from the House of Shihoin could be in attendance," the chairman said offhand, silencing the others while indicating an empty podium next to Byakuya.

"I believe Princess Yoruichi Shihoin," Byakuya said, careful to enunciate her title, "Is presently indisposed."

"Like your sister, I imagine," the chairperson shot back. "No matter, the findings of this council will proceed despite House Shihoin's absence.

"Though your willingness to accommodate the investigation has been noted, Sir Kuchiki, the level of information delivered to this council regarding the nature of the items removed from yours and the other's research compounds has been frustratingly sparse. As you are aware by now, each of the thefts save for the one at House Shihoin accompanied significant loss of life, the primary suspects in each instance being Yoruichi Shihoin and Rukia Kuchiki," the chairperson said levelly, staring at Byakuya and fishing for a response. When he didn't, the chairperson continued, "Would it interest you to know that new information has been brought to the attention of this council, and the nature of the crimes perpetrated by the _rogue nobles_ made clear?"

Ichigo's ears perked up despite keeping his head down, letting his helmet cover as much of his face as possible. There was a weird tone in the chairman's voice, reproach or contempt, it was hard to tell.

"The floor recognizes Special Advisor to the Parliament and Director of Naval Genetic Sciences," the chairperson said, holding out his hand as another man stood and took his place at his right. A smattering of applause rippled throughout the room as Ichigo watched him lean casually on the podium, his mop of chestnut hair carelessly tousled and a genial, friendly grin on his face as he nodded in thanks to the chairperson. Something was off about him though, Ichigo thought, watching him carefully adjust his thick framed, square glasses as the chairperson finished. "Commander Souske Aizen."

* * *

As the doors of the lift parted on an empty library, Rukia was initially confused but didn't stick around to question her good fortune. Slipping her way towards the hallway passage, she could hear the heavy footfalls of more security forces rushing their way towards her. Beginning to panic, she whipped around looking for somewhere to hide.

"She couldn't have gotten too far, check the library," one voice ordered as it ran past. Another security guard came through the library door, his stride shortening as he pulled a sidearm from a holster and scanned the room for her. Nervous and tense, he kept his vision down the ironsights of his weapon instead of opening his senses to the room around him as he checked the shadows of the furniture and corners.

Perched atop the narrow edge of the open door Rukia rolled her eyes that, for once, she was thankful for her slight stature and the fact that the security guard was too narrowly focused on the ground to notice her up above. Steeling herself and stilling her breathing, she timed her attack and pounced down lightly as the guard crossed her target range. The whole maneuver, an advanced grapple she was only somewhat familiar with, was over in a few seconds. Landing on the surprised guard's shoulders, her knees locking tight to either side of his chin and the crotch of her flightsuit pants against the back of his neck, she felt him teeter forward ominously and try to call for help before she threw herself backwards. The backs of her shoulders slammed into the backs of his knees as her legs yanked his head over the top of her. Catching the ground with her outstretched hands, the desperately flailing security guard toppled like a tree, head-first and backwards down on top of her as her chest rolled onto the ground. Though his weight forced the breath from her body, she was rewarded with a solid sounding crack as the top of his head collided with the hardwood floor. She heaved the suddenly slack body of the unconscious guard off of her before working her feet back beneath her, wobbling slightly and somewhat amazed she had pulled it off.

More footsteps were heading in her direction and Rukia looked around frantically for the weapon the guard had held. Not seeing it anywhere and with her injured arm smarting again, she growled in frustration and snatched a combat knife from a sheath on his boot before turning around and running from the room. A chorus of shouts erupted behind her, ordering her stop, drop her weapon and lay down on the ground. Ignoring all of them, Rukia dashed for the hall leading back out to the garage deck that held her only escape.

Hitting the large doors at full speed, Rukia burst out of the gloom of the house to the warm orange-red light of the open air garage deck, its two landing pads in plain sight, the left one still occupied by the dropship. The guards chasing her hadn't fired inside the house, but she doubted they'd be under the same constraints once outside, and she ran halfway across the deck before slowing to a stop, the fight going out of her.

Stepping away from her only means of escape, the bodyguard released the charge on the glimmer-suit and the colors faded from the deep green of the sunlit dropship to drab charcoal gray. The blades across the right glove flicked back into position.

"Your brother requests the pleasure of your company." The voice was clear despite the full facemask and helmet, and it promised pain if she didn't immediately comply. Feeling woefully unarmored in her flightsuit pants and thin pressure shirt, she flicked her eye over her shoulder to see the other security guards come tumbling from the house and spread out at a healthy distance around her. "Leave her to me, she won't be much more trouble."

Rukia glared back at the arrogant bodyguard, incensed at the flippant, casual tone the order had been issued in. Gripping her knife, she dropped into a ready stance and cleared her mind, focusing on the approaching figure as the glove mounted emblades swished through the air. "You sure? There's plenty of trouble to go around."

* * *

Though he never had any patience for politics or interest in the affairs of state or nobility, Ichigo couldn't help but pay covert attention to what this Souske Aizen guy was about to say. Oddly, he wondered if his friend Mizuiro was watching, devouring the unprecedented situation in order to weave into another one of his bar stool discussions. He self consciously made sure his helmet concealed the edges of his tell-tale orange hair as Commander Aizen prepared to speak.

"Despite Sir Kuchiki's reticence, a number of new details have come to light regarding the nature of the items stolen from the noble houses," Commander Aizen explained, "And it pains me to have to tell this great assembly that they were no less than-"

Here it comes, he's gonna tell parliament and the worlds they were bits and piece of aliens. And I've got front row seats to their reaction.

"Prototypes of recombinant human genetic bio-modifications."

 _Wait, what? Genetic bio-mods?_ Ichigo thought, _That's not what they were..._ That shit was illegal, really illegal. They screwed with your DNA, introduced artificial genetic mutations, if the parliament didn't crucify Byakuya then the Ministry of Population Control certainly would. Ichigo looked up at Byakuya, his only response being a slight widening of his eyes. Ichigo had to hand it to him, so far incredulity, anger, impatience and resignation all looked remarkably the same on his face, and they all looked like indifference.

The quietly supportive groups on the floor of the chamber had gone rigidly silent while gasps and shocked murmurs rippled through the collected members of parliament, some even stood to shout their horror down at Byakuya.

"Recklessly irresponsible!"

"Who are you to play at being God?"

Commander Aizen held a calming hand aloft, calling for order among the riled assembly. "It is deplorable, we all agree. Genetic manipulation purely for the sake of bio-modification is not only illegal, it is immoral. Genetic science can and does serve an important role in the field of medicine, but its use is strictly to combat injuries and diseases and is under heavy oversight.

"Applied outside the field of medicine, purely for vanity," he said, adjusting his glasses and lowering his tone, "Causes me grave discomfort as a scientist."

He cleared his throat and continued, "The new advances in the field of bio-modification have, in recent times, come dangerously close to blurring the line between what is human and what is not. New nano-scale structures embedded in tissue, synthetic augmentation of strength, agility and endurance, even the weaponization of the human body, all facilitated by new specially tailored genetic integrators. As bad as that is, what the noble houses have done and then allowed to be stolen, is one step further than that. These are not simple artificial structures carried into place in the body, no, these would alter the genetic information of the user directly. In short, ladies and gentlemen of the parliament, a user of this technology would trade away their humanity," he looked carefully down at Byakuya Kuchiki, "And become an abomination."

"Simply dreadful, Commander Aizen," the chairman said, "Tell us, how were these conclusions come to?"

He adjusted his glasses on his nose once more before saying, "Careful decryption and analysis of the information obtained from each research compound."

"Ridiculous," Byakuya said, once again his voice carrying weight and authority. "A grave accusation based on an imprecise interpretation of only a limited amount of data. If this is what you have called me to witness then you have wasted my time with lies and slander." The murmuring throughout the room began to grow, calling into question the validity of such tenuous evidence.

"We have also detained a number of individuals," Aizen spoke up, "Test subjects, as it were." Silence reigned through the parliament chambers at this statement. "The initial group subjected to these stolen bio-mods was recovered by naval forces not long after what we have identified as the rogue noble's base of operations was self-destroyed."

"To cover up the development and distribution of this technology?"

"I couldn't speculate as to motive, your honor," Aizen replied with a half smile, "But that would seem to be a perfectly valid theory."

"And these individuals you've detained?"

"They're in grave condition," Aizen admitted, turning serious, "And are being treated in a secure medical facility." With a wave of his hand eight display panels sprang to life, each one showing the tired, haggard looking face of a different medical patient unconscious in a hospital bed, monitors and intravenous lines attached to them.

"Our thoughts are with them," the chairman said.

"These allegations are preposterous," Byakuya said coldly, his patience thinning as he interrupted Commander Aizen's word of thanks. "Rukia Kuchiki is a naval officer, not some genetic scientist. She has neither the experience nor the aptitude to have executed what you have accused her with."

"Tell us, Sir Kuchiki, what was your sister prior to her adoption into your family?" the chairman asked as Commander Aizen returned to his seat.

"An orphan," Byakuya answered flatly.

"What was her profession?" he rephrased.

"Nothing," Byakuya replied, "As she never filed an employment registration listing a profession, prior to her adoption."

"She was a pirate!" the chairman spat at him, growing visibly agitated. "A thief and murderer, a member of a crew who made money selling what they had stolen. You claim she didn't have the experience or aptitude for such a crime? Would you care to rethink your statement? You claim she is an officer in the navy? Would it interest you to know that our inquiries have not turned up any information regarding her rank, division, commanding officer or current mission. Tell me, does this look like a naval ship to you?" Another display appeared in the center of the room, showing the sleek white lines of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ against the backdrop of Karakura Station. With her gunports concealed and control surfaces retracted, the ship looked like any other short range civilian speeder craft.

"For being her brother you're remarkably ill-informed," the chairman laughed, obviously pleased at having the upper hand. "Her service history terminates a short while after officer training, Sir Kuchiki, she's no more a soldier than I am. As for the employment registrations which you so helpfully pointed out, we have obtained a number traced back to her but submitted under false identities and they reveal a number of, shall we say, lackluster employment opportunities. Freelance spectroscopic analysis can't be too lucrative to a privileged young woman who had become used to the comforts of aristocracy. That changed, of course, when you cut her off once she left Inzuri, didn't you? Denied her any portion of the wealth your house has accrued and left her to fend for herself. She and Yoruichi Shihoin, both of them similarly disadvantaged, saw this opportunity and decided to take it."

The only response Byakuya gave, aside from stony silence, was a slight narrowing of his eyes, his fingers tightening upon the podium as Rukia was called a thief and murderer. Ichigo saw this and was confused, surely Byakuya knew this already, so why was he so shocked?

"And it was all done at the behest of this man," the chairman continued, "Kisuke Urahara. He has strong ties to both your sister and Yoruichi Shihoin, as well as this man, Ichigo Kurosaki." Displays of the three of them outside the berth of the _Red Princess_ appeared and replaced the image of the ship. "He is the apparent employer of both Mister Kurosaki and your sister, and has made no secret of the romantic relationship he has with the Princess Shihoin.

"However, unlike your sister, he has a well known and storied past with the navy, specifically military research and development. In fact, it was his early work on genetic weapons that eventually led to his dishonorable discharge. It was he who performed the experiments on these poor individuals to devise a way to replicate the process, which he planned to sell through a number of contacts including pirates, vigilantes and black marketeers." Images of Renji, Uryu, and Kukaku Shiba appeared above them all.

The chairman had continued but his words were lost on Ichigo as he stared up at the images of them floating above the collected members of parliament. Reason and meaning were tangled up somewhere in his brain as he began to comprehend the significance of these pictures, a cold dread seeping into his stomach. He had seen these images before, he realized, his mouth suddenly dry. The images of them standing in front of Kukaku's shop, walking through the spaceport on Junrinan Two... They were the same ones he and Rukia had seen aboard the ore ship.

"So now you see the whole story and all the players, are you still going to claim innocence in light of such damning evidence?"

"I can see your story, Mister Chairman," Byakuya said, "But I find it to be nothing but a creative piece of fiction. Rukia Kuchiki, motivated by greed? Yoruichi Shihoin taking orders from Kisuke Urahara? Utterly ridiculous. Even these test subjects you're touting are fabrications, the technology stolen from my research lab could never be adapted in the way it is being paraded before this assembly."

"This assembly finds itself in agreement with Commander Aizen's analysis-"

"Then this assembly is composed of gullible fools." Indignant shock followed Byakuya's accusation but he remained unruffled. The chairman tapped his gavel but was ignored, only managing to call order to the chamber once again by slamming the gavel down with force.

"Your disdain for these proceedings is noted," the chairman spat, "But your glib remarks make the duty set before me all that much easier." The chairman sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at Byakuya. "Because you and House Shihoin weren't just called here for our findings on the crimes perpetrated against your houses, it was to inform you of our decision regarding the nature of your research, and the crimes perpetrated _by_ your houses."

This caught Byakuya's attention and Ichigo noticed him shift ever so slightly from patiently long-suffering to silently attentive. The movement was minor and if he had not been so intimately familiar with Rukia's minute shifts in emotional state he may have missed it entirely.

"For too long the noble houses have conducted business above government oversight, clinging to antiquity in order to clear them of accountability. This will change. Your secrecy and private fortunes which have allowed your research labs to develop these dangerous products and technologies will no longer continue. Now that this technology has been removed from your control forces this assembly to question if it was ever truly under control in the first place. And so, because your labs have developed technologies in clear violation of the Genome Permutation Act, we have no choice but to issue the following decree," he theatrically paused, "The great noble houses, including Kuchiki and Shihoin, in addition to all minor noble houses, are to be stripped of their ranks and titles."

Chaos began to erupt across the floor of the parliament chambers, different groups expressing shock and outrage, but the chairman continued, his voice rising over the din.

"Their seats among this assembly are hereby revoked, their positions in the military are hereby dissolved. You are no longer 'Sir' Kuchiki, as there is no more nobility!" he was forced to shout. "Your accounts are frozen as your involvement in these crimes in investigated! Your business holdings will be subjected to complete audits, oversight committees will be esta- Where do you think you're going, Kuchiki?"

Byakuya had turned to step off the platform as the chairman was shouting over the complaints and yells from the floor seating, but turned on his heel to answer. The crowd grew moderately quiet as Byakuya stepped back to the podium, a level of respect the chairman had so far been unable to command. "The summons I received was addressed to a 'Sir Byakuya Kuchiki'."

"What does that matter?"

"As you have just dissolved the nobility, I am no longer _Sir_ Byakuya Kuchiki," he said, his voice still low and even, "If this assembly has need of my presence again, please address the summons properly." With that, Byakuya turned on his heel and walked purposefully off the platform, to the laughs and applause of the floor. "Come, pilot," he said to Ichigo, his eyes fixed on the door leading back to the embarkation deck.

"Where are you going? You are not excused! Return at once!" the chairman raged, his gavel snapping as he pounded it down.

Byakuya ignored him, as well as the rising chorus of shouts and accusations around them, and continued walking purposefully down the carpeted aisle. Leaving the flustered parliament behind as they squabbled among themselves with the fallout of their decision, the large doors swung firmly shut, snuffing out the riot brewing on the parliament floor. A few of the gravi-cams that had followed them inside the chambers were now floating in their wake and slipping around to their front, the newscasters on the huge displays on the building across from them talking in stricken tones at dissolution of the nobility they had just seen. The marines moved to fall back into formation around them as Ikkaku stepped up to Ichigo, holding out and returning his sidearm.

But when Ichigo reached for it, another hand had already taken it. Confused at the smoothly executed interception, Ikkaku and the rest of the marines turned perplexed eyes at Byakuya Kuchiki as the ex-noble strode past them to the edge of the great staircase, a dark shape against the golden-crimson light, then turned back.

"What do you say to these allegations," Byakuya asked evenly, "Ichigo Kurosaki?" If the marines and few spectators at the door were quiet when he had taken the weapon, everyone was shocked into utter silence at the pronunciation of Ichigo's name, loudly punctuated as Byakuya expertly disengaged the safety, chambered a round and leveled the barrel at Ichigo.

Eyes widening, Ikkaku stepped away from Ichigo, withdrawing the offered pulse rifle as all the marines raised their own weapons in alarm. Swiveling between Byakuya, who was armed, and Ichigo, who was a wanted suspect, Ikkaku grit his teeth and waited for orders from his captain.

"So... That's Ichigo Kurosaki huh?" Captain Zaraki said, picking his teeth with the edge of his fingernail, "I knew you didn't quite look like one of the flyboys on the _Demon Light_." His eyes shot up to Ichigo's. "I've been looking forward ta'meeting ya," he rumbled, "So don't shoot him, not yet anyway."

Pinned by the savage captain's stare, the planet itself seemed to hold still for a moment as Ichigo realized the ruse was over, and perhaps had never even been in place to begin with. "When did you figure it out?" he asked Byakuya instead, tugging the helmet off his head and ruffling his bright orange spikes back into position.

"You must think I am some kind of fool," Byakuya answered, "It was obvious you were no marine from the moment I saw you aboard my hovership."

"Then why didn't you turn me in?"

"Surrounded by true marines and myself, I knew you would have had to continue to play the part, and I allowed it as I knew you would have information that I require. I ask you again, what do you say to these allegations?"

"It's all bullshit," he replied, becoming unconcerned with the weapons pointed his way. "You were right about Kisuke, Yoruichi, the rest of them... Your sister and I were set up to take the fall for all this, we're being framed." _And somebody in parliament knows it, based on those images of us,_ he thought, looking pointedly back at the chamber doors.

"And yet, your actions have not been that of innocent men and women." He motioned with the gun down the steps and Ichigo, his hands spread just enough to be non-threatening, obliged.

"Yeah, well," Ichigo said as they walked down to the landing pad, the marines fanning out behind them, guns raised, "We just need a little more time and we'll have everything we need to clear our names."

"Time is something you no longer have," Byakuya said. "You heard the council's decree, the nobility has been abolished, the ramifications will be severe throughout the inner orbits." He stopped at the base of the hovership, gravi-cams flitting about as the newscasters scrambled to cover the story developing on the steps of parliament. "Return my sister to me so that this situation can be swiftly resolved," he ordered, a serious and grave expression on his face.

"So can do what? Turn her over to the patrol forces to get on the parliament's good side again? Fat chance," Ichigo ground out, taking a menacing step towards Byakuya and letting the surge of contempt allow him to ignore the weapon in his hand.

"You are trying my patience, Ichigo Kurosaki. I have little regard for the parliament and care nothing for their petty decrees. I do not pretend to know or care about your objective, but you must know by now that whatever plan you devised will not work. Cease this course of action at once and surrender."

"Plan _I_ devised? I wish I could take credit for this whole thing, seeing as how it's going so well, but this was all your sister's idea."

The mention of Rukia caused Byakuya to firm his lips and glower, as if in sudden realization. "Captain Zaraki, your ships have a crew of two, do they not?"

"Yeah," came the gruff response.

"So if you are here, then it stands to reason that Rukia," he said, eyes flicking to the displays around them as they shifted to show events unfolding atop the Kuchiki headquarters. "It appears I have no further use for you after all, Ichigo Kurosaki, as Rukia is about to be taken into my security guard's custody."

Ichigo turned his head up to face the display and watched as Rukia, panting and limping, continued to hold onto a combat knife and defend herself from a figure dressed in gray bodyarmor and armed with a handful of wickedly curved daggers. Ringed by other armed guards and with her back against the raised edge of the empty landing pad, she was managing to defend herself but was clearly tiring and becoming desperate.

* * *

Her breath sounding ragged in her own ears, Rukia pushed a lock of hair from her sweat-soaked brow and wiped the moisture from her lip with an unsteady hand, a few drops of blood trickling down her fingers. Her arm was throbbing angrily as she tightened her grip on the knife, favoring her left thigh where her pant leg was cut into ribbons, two of the blade tips managing to cut shallow slices through her skin and coating her calf with blood.

The bodyguard continued the slow pace around her, waiting for weakness or vulnerability. The most damage Rukia had managed to accomplish was a shallow dig in the break between armor pads across the ribcage, but the blade tip hadn't managed to penetrate the inner lining, and a vicious left cross against the bodyguard's facemask that did more damage to her own knuckles than they inflicted. Gravi-cams were flocking to the rooftop, capturing the drama unfold live for the people of the City, but Rukia did her best to ignore them, concentrating solely on her opponent.

Finally, the bodyguard grew tired of drawing out their little duel and flicked the bladed glove out, coming in with a sweep, slashing hard and fast at her. Rukia grit her teeth and met the charge, shifting her grip and desperately countering.

* * *

"Are you watching the news?" cried a voice from the doorway, its owner bursting into the room. She wore a sharp but harried looking business suit, the ident badge at her lapel reading 'C. Honsho - Manager' as it flapped around, the woman dashing forward and pulling out a news panel.

"No, why? What's going on?" Tatsuki answered, looking up from her training. She sighed at the excitable woman's tendency to burst in on the team. It never seemed to matter if they were training, doing sparring matches, having focused strategy sessions, or were in the middle of showering. It was always something.

"Don't you know this guy, Tats?" she asked, pulling open the live display and slapping it to the wall's main panel. The wall of the training gym was suddenly dominated by two live feeds from Inzuri. One of them showed a young woman surrounded by armed security guards on the roof of some fancy building. She was armed with a knife and fighting, rather impressively Tatsuki observed, another armored security guard. Tatsuki could see she was getting winded and desperate, her dodges and counters were slowing and left opening in her defenses.

Turning to the other feed, she felt her blood chill in her veins. Standing near the edge of the capitol parliament building next to a grim faced corporate-type with a gun in his hand and surrounded by armed soldiers and patrol force members, was an all too familiar head of orange spikes. "Ichigo..." Tatsuki gasped. All the hurt and anger and heartache she had taken out on the punching bag from earlier came rushing back again, stealing her breath and clenching in her gut.

Everyone else's eyes seemed to be watching the raven haired girl with the knife as she made a final lunge at her opponent. Involuntary gasps broke out across the training room floor as Tatsuki's teammates watched her hand lash out but flail harmlessly wide as her knee buckled, her strike coming to a faltering stop. Tatsuki kept her eyes on Ichigo, too nervous to look away from him.

* * *

Rukia knew it was over, down to one knee and grimacing in pain. She didn't have the reach to hit her opponent, it was a last ditch attempt in either case, and her eyes narrowed on the featureless mask of her opponent as her wrist was caught by the bodyguard's free hand.

"It's over," the bodyguard snarled, pulling back the bladed glove for a final strike.

"It certainly is," Rukia said evenly, the pain vanishing from her face. She almost laughed as the bodyguard's head jerked back in surprised, flicking down to her captured hand and seeing it empty, all her fingers but the middle one curling into a fist. She had switched the knife to her other hand.

The bodyguard seemed to know it was too late, only having enough time to look at Rukia's cold, determined face as the arm shot up from below, aimed at the forearm which had captured Rukia's and driving the knife hard all the way through the armored glove, stopping at the hilt. With the same motion you would use to flick the cap off a bottle, Rukia stood and used the handle of the knife wedged between the bodyguard's arm bones to free her trapped wrist, driving the armored figure to its knees with a scream. Mercilessly, Rukia stepped around and drew the pinned arm up behind the figure's back, braced her knee against their spine and grasped the lip between the helmet and facemask. With a sharp jerk, she pulled the mask and helmet off the bodyguard and tossed it aside.

Screaming again as the knife was wrenched free, she grit her teeth as Rukia grabbed a fistful of her cottoncandy pink hair, spun the blade around before her eyes and held it to her exposed throat. "Nobody move, hold your fire," she commanded, eyes flicking around the stunned expressions on the faces of her security guards.

"Smart girl, Yachiru. I knew there was a reason my brother picked you for a bodyguard, now c'mon, we're leaving."

"Where do you think you're going to go, Rukia?" Yachiru asked, careful to keep her bladed hand out wide and nonthreatening. "Bya-kun isn't going to let you get away, and even you did, how far do you think you would get?" She winced as she motioned at the gravi-cams hovering around the rooftop.

"Just shut up and move," Rukia said, tightening her grip on the girl's hair. Finally taking the time to scan the building displays around them, she caught sight of Ichigo trapped on the deck of the capitol building, surrounded by marines and held by her brother at gunpoint. On another, she could see herself on the roof the Kuchiki building, sweaty and bleeding, surrounded by security forces and holding her brother's bodyguard at knifepoint.

"Ichigo!" she screamed, looking him in the eye through the display panels.

* * *

The worlds seemed to hold their collective breath as Rukia shouted his name. Ichigo could see Byakuya as shocked and frozen as everyone else, all of them drawn to the action on the screens taking place across the City. Ichigo was about to shout back to her but his words strangled in his throat as he, and everyone, watched a patrol force cruiser surge up from below the lip of the building and touch down hard on the landing pad behind Rukia. Her hair blowing in the gusting wind and deafening noise, Ichigo could see her turn to look over her shoulder just as two patrol force members leapt from the open side airlock, weapons drawn.

Keeping her knife to the pink haired girl's neck, she shouted at them as they raised their guns, shouting back at her. Havoc was beginning to ensue on the rooftop as the security guards began yelling opposing orders. Ichigo could see the situation beginning to unravel as Rukia, looking increasingly pale as blood continued to trickle down her injured leg, tried moving her hostage again back towards the dropship, security guards in front of her, patrol force behind. As if in slow motion, he watched Rukia's leg buckle for real this time, the bodyguard managing to push the knife away and stumble to safety, clutching her wounded forearm. Standing in the open on the garage deck, her knife still dripping with blood, Rukia caught Ichigo's eye again.

Staring helplessly, Ichigo watched as she was shot twice in the back.

"RUKIA!"

The only sound cutting through the sudden hush, Byakuya's clear tenor was broken in anguish as he called her name, watching wide-eyed as she crumpled to the ground before the news feed cut mercifully to black. Too shocked too move, everyone around seemed still as a statue as Byakuya spun to face Ichigo, his face barely suppressing livid rage.

"You see what your foolish plan has done?" Byakuya demanded, his cool demeanor beginning to fray, the gun in his hand shaking unsteadily. He held out his other hand, indicating the suddenly black display panels around them. "YOUR RECKLESS ACTIONS HAVE TAKEN WHAT'S LEFT OF MY FAMILY!" he roared.

Ichigo, shoulders slumped and his whole body feeling numb, ran his fingers over the flightsuit helmet he still had in his hands and looked up to face Rukia's brother, saying simply, "I'm sorry, Byakuya."

"Was this part of your plan too?" Byakuya seethed, still visibly shaking in anger. It was then he had noticed the orange-haired young man had covertly taken measured steps back to the lip of the embarkation deck. The image of his heels at the edge of the landing platform giving him startled pause.

Ichigo held out his arms to side in apparent surrender, looking upward towards the sky and away from the despair on the man's face. "You know the hallmark of any great plan?" he asked, lifting one foot and holding it out over the precipitous drop behind him. "Adaptability."

* * *

"No, Ichigo!" Tatsuki screamed, holding her hands out to the display as if she could stop him. But she couldn't, and it was her turn to watch helplessly as he stepped off the platform and fell away.

To be continued...


	23. Part 2: The Execution

There on the garage deck, at the top of Kuchiki Corporate Headquarters, smeared across the surface of one of the landing pads and over the top of the scuff marks from numerous landing strut touchdowns, was the color red. And it was splattered...

Everywhere.

His gaze shifted uneasily from her, to the weapon in his hand, and back to the pool of red seeping out around her. Such a small thing... Such a big pool. He swallowed uncomfortably and gingerly holstered his gun as he approached.

Looking down, he was struck by how different she appeared now, eerily motionless, rather than than a moment ago as she was fighting for her life. In his mind's eye he kept replaying the transition, her body jerking twice, the spray of fine ruby mist, the knife falling from her suddenly slack fingers. He couldn't have seen her face but he could well imagine the grim determination... the _fire_ in her eyes as it was snuffed out, drowned by the pool around her. She was left small, broken, and vulnerable.

The other patrol force member on the landing pad laid his fingers against her neck and looked up at him. "Medical link unresponsive, sir."

"Let's bag her up, get her away from those cameras." He looked over towards the gravi-cams, then further at the dark uniformed security guards either frozen in shock or tending the pink-haired one's arm wound. His gaze shifted out to the city stretching down and around them, skyscrapers towering above the ground level, the few spacescrapers in the distance towering above everything else.

With practiced efficiency the two of them slid her body into a bag made of thick, shiny black material and carried it towards their waiting cruiser.

"Be careful Goddammit," he said, seeing the other's hand slip from one of the loops on the bag as they walked up to the open airlock. He got a sour look in response as the man gripped the bag more securely.

"Give me the all clear for dust-off," came the call from the bridge as they moved past.

"We're good, the security guards are still dealing with that pink-haired girl."

"Did you see that?" came the reply back from the bridge, the engines thrumming through the floor beneath them. "She stabbed her right through the arm."

"Yeah," he said, removing the patrol force helmet after setting the bag down. "Rukia's always been kind of a badass."

"Let's get this open again, I can't imagine it's very comfortable in there..." the other muttered.

The cloying blackness was breached and a wash of bright light spilled into her eyes as the heavy material was pulled away. Lying on the floor and blinking away the glare, Rukia took in the two faces hovering above her with a steely gaze. "You shot me... right in the back."

"Good to see you too," Renji said, tossing aside the helmet and tying his crimson hair back into its messy tail.

"Indeed," Uryu agreed, likewise removing his own helmet and straightening the sleeves of his patrol force uniform. "We each got your messages, honestly I didn't think we were going to make it in time. I wasn't certain I could recreate patrol force uniforms on such short notice."

"And we barely had time to repaint the _Zabi Maru_."

Rukia sat up from the body bag she was in, her pressure shirt stained red and damp across her back. Too red. Real blood dried to a muddy brown color, this was still bright. Like ink. The slices in her leg were real enough though, and they demanded her attention but she ignored them just as she ignored the ache in her back where she had been shot with ink-cartridge blanks. "We need a new exit strategy for Ichigo, we were supposed to stay together... What? What happened?" she demanded, seeing their expression and alternating looks between Uryu and Renji.

"Ichigo had a different exit plan," Renji said haltingly, "I guess your brother wasn't supposed to I-D him."

"Is he okay? Where is he? What happened?" Rukia interrogated, growing alarmed.

"He's fine," Uryu answered reassuringly, noting her shift in attitude. Based on the flicker of pained expression on Renji's face, he guessed her former flame noted it as well. "He jumped off the building," Uryu finished.

"He did what!"

Uryu pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose before saying, "Maybe you should watch the playback?"

* * *

(One minute earlier)

For a long moment no one moved. Byakuya and the marines stared dully at the lip of the landing pad deck, the patrol force members behind them looked incredulously at one another, even the gravi-cams were frozen in midair as their remote operators were shocked into inaction.

The moment of spellbound tranquility was broken as the unmistakable piercing wail of the uncontrolled deorbit alarm rang out and a rumble from overhead began growing louder and louder. A series of staccato bursts cracked through the air and drew all their eyes upward to the sky. A dark shape trailing a thin finger of smoke that stretched upward to infinity was descending through the atmosphere. It had ejected its re-entry heat shields rather than take the time to retract them, and gasps of shock and surprise rippled out as the group caught sight of what emerged from within that shell of darkness.

An angel, her wings spread wide, was falling from above. The sleek white curves and graceful profile were wreathed in fire and flame, burning her to black. The side intakes opened and with a deafening roar that shook the towers of glass and steel, her air breathing engines ignited to full throttle, sending the _Sode no Shirayuki_ tearing through the air and down past the parliament building in a steep, desperate dive.

It was the gravi-cams that moved first, pitching themselves over the edge of the building in the wake of the hurtling ship and the falling young man. The marines moved second, dashing to the edge to catch a glimpse of what was happening. It was Byakuya who moved last, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as he composed himself. He activated his neural link and began issuing remote commands to his security team as he moved not to the edge where all the others were gathering, but up the ramp to his hovership to sit confidently at the control console.

Captain Zaraki watched with mild interest as the newly-ex-noble's hovership lifted up and cruised quickly away before spying the three hardsuits that had been left behind, waiting for orders. Grinning madly as he decided his course of action, he headed directly towards them, motioning for them to open up. "Madarame, Ayasegawa! Get yer asses over here."

* * *

Wind. Tugging at his hair, blurring his vision, howling in his ears, yanking on his clothes. It sent him tumbling around and around, pushing him out into the void and away from the building. With idle curiosity it toyed with him, showing him glimpses of the subtle curve of the horizon, the gleaming spires of the nearby buildings, the glow of the transit lanes below him and the clear sunset sky above.

Fighting to steady himself against the plummeting descent and the grip of instinctual fear clenched around his gut, Ichigo grit his teeth and focused.

The equations began blossoming in his head. Time. Distance. Velocity. Acceleration. Drag. Mass. Air density. Their myriad interrelated values and coefficients wove together in an intricate mathematical tapestry. Mentally seizing one of those woven strands, he gripped it like a ribbon in his hand and tugged free the value he needed.

"Twelve and a half seconds," he whispered to himself, the words torn from his lips by the rushing air. "Plenty of time." The disorienting sensation of falling had slipped away, letting him clear his mind and right himself. Craning his head up and around, he managed to see his salvation rushing down at him, the long trail of dark smoke a stark contrast to the fluffy pink and violet clouds.

Diving from that sunset sky, the white paneling singed and streaked with re-entry burns, came the _Sode no Shirayuki_. Watching the canopy slide fully back as it rushed towards him, Ichigo caught the flash of blue engine fire in the distance at the lip of the embarkation deck. Three dull green shapes had dropped off far behind the interceptor, the flares of their thruster vents flinging them into pursuit.

Seeing the ship speeding towards him with the canopy slid open wide, Ichigo pulled his arms and legs in tight, tucking his chin to his chest and bracing for impact. He knew there wasn't time to speed match his descent, he was in free fall and with the ship diving at this angle, the inertia would be too great for the I-Grav emitters to overcome alone. Mentally he knew exactly what would happen. A hard impact as the ship scooped him up, a bone-jarring bounce off whatever surface he hit first, then another off the canopy lid as it slammed closed around him. Finally, he'd hopefully crash into one of the padded seats and manage to grab a harness strap as the ship poured on the speed and pulled out of its dive, fighting its way out of a near-stall and crushing him under several g-forces in the process. If he wasn't unconscious by then, he'd be bruised, battered and bleeding.

Of course, knowing something and living it are two different things.

Through the roar of the engines and the howl of the wind as Ichigo was captured by the ship cockpit, he heard the muffled command of "HOLD ONTO SOMETHING" reverberate in his ears, thundering from all around him. Ichigo had just enough time to see, curling below him like a river of light through the towering buildings, a densely populated transit lane streaming with civilian vehicles all blithely unaware of the falling ship above. The nose of the ship shot beneath his feet and the well of the cockpit was suddenly all around him. Tucking his helmeted head into his arms, he had barely a second to curl in and protect himself as the ship canopy gobbled him up.

* * *

Tatsuki ignored the cheer that went up around her as the ship completed its desperate catch, her eyes fixed to the screens. The gravi-cams recording and broadcasting the event to a speechless audience were being knocked out of the way as the colonial marines zoomed down in pursuit. Like some nightmarish dream, all she could see was the surface of the transit lane as it came speeding towards them and the huge guns of the assault hardsuits.

"He's not pulling up," was all she had time to say. The rest of the room seem far away and quiet as she watched, in careful detail, the exhaust vents vectoring, the control surfaces adjusting and braking thrusters realigning.

"What's he doing?" she screamed, just as the ship turned and dove through the narrow gap separating the different sides of the elevated transit lane. A blinding flash of orange-red light flared out from beneath the lane as panic gripped the vehicles down the lanes and the people watching around her. The scene zoomed back as the gravi-cam adjusted its lens and a few of the newscasters tried speak.

"Look!" one shouted, her jubilant elation palpable through the newsfeeds. The gravi-cam zoomed back in, the scene lensing into focus just as the black-streaked ship burst from beneath the jumbled transit interchange, nose up and engine wash firing at full burn, blazing out behind to sear and bubble the hastily abandoned lane. Launching itself back skyward, it left a long black scorch mark in its wake.

It was only then that Tatsuki allowed herself the briefest of respites, enough to draw breath, no more. Peripherally, she was aware of the door to the training room sliding open but she was too fixated on the rapidly disappearing shape speeding away from the gravi-cams and carrying Ichigo to pay close attention. At least, until she heard her voice.

"Tatsuki?"

Feeling like the breath she had just taken had been knocked from her body, Tatsuki looked from the displays towards the door. Standing there, winded from running, eyes round and red with pent up emotion, stood Orihime. Eye contact broke some internal barrier and the sunset haired young woman burst into tears, hurling herself at Tatsuki and clutching at her for support.

"It's okay, Ichigo is okay. Look," Tatsuki nudged Orihime's chin towards the display, trying to continue her reassurance with a brave but faltering voice, "-he made it..."

Though the audio from the gravi-cams was distorted and tinny, everyone in the room heard the distinctive sliding sound of the assault rifle's action as the hovering hardsuit watched the ship speeding away. The camera lens caught the motion as the hardsuit waved the others into pursuit, disengaged the safety on the assault rifle, and then sped off after them.

* * *

Through a haze of all new and very interesting pains across his body, Ichigo wearily clambered up from his jumbled position and fell gracelessly into the pilot's station, fumbling the restraints together. One thought permeated the fog in his brain as he fought for clarity: that it was Kon who must have been flying the ship.

And he was doing a piss poor job of it.

Cataloging the situation would help, he thought. "Three hardsuits chasing me," Ichigo groaned, the act of talking making his ribs ache anew. "Densely populated city, lots of patrol force ships probably headed my way, and..." he looked over his shoulder at the empty tactical station after buckling himself in, "No gunner. Great, just great. Kon, can you take over the tac station? Once we get out of the city we'll need some firepower."

"Sorry Ichigo-"

"I know you're a pacifist or something, but I really need-"

"No, I can't, literally."

Zipping through the towering spires of glimmering glass and steel, he shifted control of the ship away from Kon to himself. As his hands felt the familiar touch of the manual controls and his neural link rolled through navigation and flight control subsystems, Ichigo didn't have the time to look back at the storage area behind the tactical station with incredulity. Instead, he just thought about it. Very hard. "I'm not asking you to kill anyone here-"

"I'm not on board, genius!" Kon interrupted. "I was flying the ship by remote! I kept a newsfeed open while I was stuck in impound and I knew your little plan was screwed to moment you stepped aboard that limo."

"Wait, so where are you?" Ichigo heard a few muffled shouts through the comm line, then Kon yelling something back, wincing as it was followed by a squeal of feedback.

"Never mind that, concentrate on what you're doing," Kon said dismissively. "Now that my bandwidth isn't being consumed by trying to catch your dumb ass, I'm getting that Rukia's okay. Unlike you, she's making a quiet getaway and isn't being actively pursued by a trio of heavily armed and armored assault hardsuits."

"Good, shaking these guys shouldn't be too ha-" A streaking bolt of white light tore past the canopy, sonic backlash rattling his teeth and shattering windows in the buildings around him. "-Holy! Live fire? What the hell?"

"If you want to be technical," Kon intoned dryly, "This is still being classified as an uncontrolled deorbit, and orders are orders."

Ichigo activated another comm line and opened a channel to the hardsuits chasing him. "You're gonna kill somebody, shooting like that!" he shouted as soon as it established.

"I sure am," replied the low, smooth voice of Captain Zaraki, "And it's gonna be you, flyboy, unless you can bring that A-game that Madarame talked up so much."

Another thunderous bolt of supersonic gauss rifle fire shook the air, narrowly missing the fast flying interceptor as they raced through the city. Gawking, Ichigo sent the ship skimming fifty feet above the top level Pedestrian Deck and veered wildly in between the buildings. "You're insane!" Ichigo yelled back at him, "Firing your guns in the city!"

Zaraki laughed back in his face through the comm channel. "If ya care so much then I guess you'll have your work cut out for ya, 'cuz you're going to have to dodge while still keeping my line of fire out of the way of all the civvies."

The comm channel shut down with a crack of static in Ichigo's ear. Cursing to himself, he rolled the ship through the sparse the web of interconnected spans and bridgewalks linking different buildings together, their pristine surfaces shining spotless in the soft evening light. Checking around as the two other hardsuits zipped down parallel paths, arcing up high and attempting to flank him, he caught sight of hundreds of people pressed to the windows of their buildings and gaping down at him as he sped beneath the silver and glass bridges. Beyond, through the flickering of the buildings rushing past, he could see patrol force strikercraft rushing towards him. "You want to play this way? Fine," he muttered to himself, "Let's see how you do when it's a little more cramped and less populated?"

Coming along next to a less busy transit lane stretching gracefully through the city and elevated high above the Pedestrian Deck, the control surfaces along the wings and fins retracted, tucking back into a more streamlined position as he rolled the ship up and over the high partition and then down low to the surface lane. The few hovercars around him swerved and slammed on their brakes, which made taking the branching path to the commercial interchange all the easier. Picking a ramp, he tucked the ship lower to the deck and followed the lane down and around as it met a huge tunnel mouth, taking him into the lower levels of the city.

The too-tight tunnel was mercifully short and it opened up upon the Middle Deck. Once it had been the top-most level of the city, until the Pedestrian Deck had been built above it. Now it served as a type of second-class level, dirtier and darker than the one above. Five stories separated the floor of the Middle Deck from the ceiling, and though the designers had concealed it as best they could with lights, it didn't change the fact that the Middle Deck was beneath the feet, and often the notice, of those on the Pedestrian Deck.

There was something about hurtling down a transit lane, even a commercial lane and skimming over the top of the large, auto-driven hoverfreighters, that seemed absurdly unreal. Speeding was one thing, edging his hovercycle above the limit and risking the attention of station security. His present speed however, was so far beyond as to be incomparable. Laws of traffic guidance and regulation simply didn't apply. The reality was that he was flying a stellar spacecraft literally through the middle of a populated city and at his present velocity, everything was grouped under the subject of 'obstacle'.

Ichigo ignored the pinpricks flitting behind his eyes and pushed the throttle forward, the sunlights of Middle Deck flickering past overhead as he pushed the ship faster down the transit lane, leaving chaos and jetwash in his wake.

* * *

"I don't think we've ever seen anything like this, as you can see, the man piloting the ship has actually flown it down into the middle levels of the city. We're getting reports that the man in question is a Mister Ichigo Kurosaki. Yes, the same one recently branded as a criminal by the Colonial Government for his involvement in crimes allegedly perpetrated by the Kuchiki family heiress, Rukia Kuchiki." The newsreporter flashed a brilliantly white smile at her audience, no doubt seeing visions of journalism awards in her future for covering this developing story. "We turn now to our field reporter, who, I'm being told, has managed to make his way down to the Middle Deck... Don? Don Kanogi, can you hear me?"

"Yes! Yes 'ah can, Ryo!" the field reporter said proudly into his camera lens, a giant schmoozing smile plastered across his face.

"Don, isn't it dangerous being down there? I understand you've moved directly in the ship's predicted flight path?"

"We certainly have Miss Kunieda, and this network is the only one bringin' you the action from the scene, as it happens, all live all the time bay-bee!" he said, adjusting his circular sunglasses. "And we'll be the only one's on the scene when this all comes to its fiery conclusion!"

"Does that mean you think he's going to crash, Don?"

"Unless his reflexes are somehow sharper than mine then it's a guaranteed..." he flashed a toothy grin and a thumbs up into the camera, "Certainty!"

Rukia flipped the news off, turning away from the display and edging past Renji and Uryu as she made her way to the bridge. Huffing angrily, she pulled the white robe around her tighter, the only thing she had found to wear after she had stripped her clothes off to soak out the blood, both real and fake.

"You don't want to know what happens?" Uryu asked, puzzled.

"I know what'll happen," Rukia confidently replied, "I know him, what kind of pilot he can be." She turned away, talking offhand. "He went down to the Middle Deck because there are less people, and he's staying on the commercial transit lanes because they are mostly filled with auto-driven vehicles. He's trying to protect people, should one of the marines crash or shoot wildly, not to mention that the patrol force strikers can't follow or track him down there."

"You don't think Ichigo might crash?" Renji asked critically.

Rukia shot a hard look at him. "He won't crash, he wouldn't _allow_ it. Too much is on the line, and with no gunner he'll have to resort to creativity to disable those hardsuits, and trust me, he can be pretty creative. Now come on," she said, heading back towards the bridge, "If we don't get a move on Ichigo will beat us into orbit."

* * *

Hurtling down the low, wide tunnels of the Middle Deck transit system, the artificial sunlights in the ceiling flickered by as the belly of his ship barely scraped over the top of the massive hoverfreighters that made up the bulk of commercial traffic. Nearly all of them were flown by remote by the city's auto-transit control system, and they all pondered along at the same sedate pace, equally spaced from each other, leaving just enough room for Ichigo to squeeze the ship around, above and among them.

The echo of the air breathing turbofan engines were broken at regular intervals as Ichigo passed beneath wide open spaces in the ceiling, designed to allow fresher air to circulate down to the commercial lanes. At first Ichigo ignored it, but bobbing and weaving around as much as the tight space permitted, evading the increasing rifle bursts that grazed his wings and ricocheted off the freighters, he happened upon a possible strategy. Watching the next flicker by, the lights dashing past above him, Ichigo began memorizing its shape of the empty space and the distance between them. The openings were fairly large, not large enough for the ship to fly through, but large enough.

The pins and needles sensation in his eyes were becoming irritating but he forced himself to focus, lest it become distracting. The assault hardsuits were designed for high speed chases like this, either spatially or terrestrially, there would be no way to simply outrun them in an urban setting. Which meant he would have to outmaneuver them. Easing back on the throttle, he let the hardsuits close the gap between them as he carefully began counting the time between the openings. In the distance set up on one of the cargo loading platforms, he absently noted a camera crew and reporter, pointing and aiming his way.

His brow furrowing in confusion, Ikkaku watched the blackened ship begin to slow down. He and his fellow marines, zipping low to the transit lane surface in between the huge hoverfreighters, only took a moment to push their I-Gravs and thrusters harder and target lock the ship, trying to take advantage of this brief opportunity. Ikkaku, however, only felt his confusion grow as the ship settled into the very middle of the level, moving away from the relative cover of the freighters. "Something's weird about this," he muttered into his comm.

"He's just been lucky so far. Oh he can fly, I'll give you that, but he hasn't been combat trained and that explains it," Yumichika sniffed. "I'm moving to engage."

As the hardsuit surged ahead, leveling the assault rifle and taking a bead, Ikkaku watched the I-Grav emitting control surfaces across the scorched ship all snap closed, lift along the wings being the only thing keeping her in the air. "Control surfaces just closed, I'm telling you he's up to something!"

Yumichika must have had the same thought but didn't have time to react, and together they watched the ship's main engines flare and the recessed, rarely used flaps along the wings and fins twist upwards. The tail end sank low to the deck of the transit lane as the nose tipped high, jetwash scorching against the surface as he pushed the throttle for a moment before cutting to zero. The sudden shift in orientation and force sent the ship into a whipcrack arc, angular momentum carrying the nose up while linear momentum pulled the heavy tail forward beneath it.

For a moment Ikkaku thought he had lost control of the ship, and that they were going to have to spend the rest of the day scraping the poor bastard off the ceiling of the Middle Deck, but as the ship passed beneath one of the wide open areas its nose swept directly up through that gap, the massive engines at the rear of the ship swinging like a pendulum up, up, up. Mouth hanging open, Ikkaku watched as Ichigo backflipped the ship inside the enclosed transit lane, its inertia carrying the ship directly over onto its back high up near the ceiling. It seemed to hang there for a moment, upside down and backwards, before another flash of engine fire and judicious use of the braking thrusters flung the tail back over. It stood for a moment, balanced on its nose, inches from scraping across the transit lane surface before the heavy tail came rushing back down over the top.

Ikkaku took a moment to marvel in sheer amazement at performing such a maneuver in such a cramped space. Luckily, he had his vision overlay set to telescopic and had caught sight of Ichigo's face through the canopy as he pulled it off, and what he saw he could not explain. His face was set in confident determination, but his eyes... Ikkaku shook himself, realizing the tactic for what it was midway through the maneuver. Ichigo had used the backflip to close distance on the hardsuits and as he watched the ship come down directly next to a very surprised Yumichika, the control surfaces across it shot back open.

"SHIT!"

The resulting blast from the I-Grav emitters as the ship worked to stay in the air destabilized the nearby hoverfreighters, tumbling them down onto the durocrete surface of the transit lane. While the hoverfreighters were travelling at a fraction of the velocity the ship and hardsuits were, they were still going fast enough that the resulting collision with each other as they tore up the surface echoed like cannonfire through the entire Middle Deck. Ikkaku and the captain were still far enough away to cycle their outputs and stay aloft, vaulting over the heap of twisted freight cars piling high in the enclosed lane, but Yumichika was not so fortunate. Caught in the sudden downdraft of I-Grav emissions, the engines across the hardsuit sputtered as its own control surfaces tried to compensate.

Destabilized by the wildly oppositional graviton currents, Yumichika was flung out of control and punched through the side of one of the few freighters that had somehow narrowly avoided crashing. The sudden weight of the hardsuit, however, was enough to drag the hovercraft down to touch the surface, sending it skipping wildly up and then back down hard, tearing open the cargo hold and spilling the contents, and the hardsuit, out across the transit lane.

"Yumichika!" he called out. He turned his head as they shot past the camera crew, the downed hardsuit skidding to a stop almost at their feet. Ikkaku very nearly laughed at his friend's suddenly not-so-dire situation, his suit covered by thick, garishly colored iridescent paint. Trying to stand resulted in him slipping and falling back to the ground.

"I'm okay," he heard through his ear implant, right before he groaned as the reporter and camera crew swarmed around him, "I must look like crap..."

Ichigo took advantage of the momentary distraction to regain his lost velocity and distance, spying another level interchange on the map overlay and angling the ship around towards it. The reverberating thunder of the engines inside the commercial level transit lane died away as the ship shot up from the tunnel mouth leading away from the Middle Deck and back into the open air above the Pedestrian level.

Like breathing a breath of fresh air, the open space around him took the edge off the tenseness that had crept into his shoulders after piloting the speeding ship through the transit lane tunnels. Climbing up from the surface of the top level, he shot past buildings shadowed and dwarfed by the rising skyscrapers, which were in turn dwarfed by the occasional, colossal spacescraper. For his part, Ichigo had had enough of the confined spaces and terrestrial geography. Getting back into the air was good, but getting back into orbit would be ideal.

The two hardsuits remaining came rushing out of the interchange in his wake just as he was beginning to think he had lost them. He was further annoyed as warning lights began flashing across his control panels, all of them reading 'MISSILE LOCK'.

"You've got to be kidding me." Watching the rear target tracking camera display of the hardsuit on his tail, the shoulderplates had swung open revealing a dozen small launch tubes. Ichigo's brows lifted in surprise, seeing several flashes and puffs of smoke, before he realized the hardsuit had launched a salvo of the deadly little things here in the heart of the city. "And people think _I'm_ reckless?"

Pulling the controls, Ichigo lifted the ship into a hard climb before opening manual override inside his mind. Taking his hands off the controls, he flicked his fingers over the displays and activated the countermeasure control just as his mind yanked the ship into a spiraling roll. Centrifugal force pulled him upwards, hard against his restraints and his untethered arms lifted away from the panels up towards the canopy as the ship rolled and rolled, climbing higher up through the city and spitting out glowing countermeasure flares in every direction. He mentally ended the roll and forced his hands back to the controls, banked to a hard turn and then dove back down among the city, the echoes of missile explosions as they hit the countermeasures ringing in his ears.

The towers were rushing past him as if he were running through a forest where the trees were made of glass. "Need to get out of the city," he decided. Out in the open air he'd be more vulnerable, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about innocent bystanders getting hurt or killed. He checked his speed. Killed was more likely.

Peering ahead, the towers were beginning to thin out and a narrow black line was extending straight up in the distance. The Seijoto Space Elevator. It would be swarming with patrol force ships and navy vessels doing security at the spaceport exchange. It was the last place he wanted to be and the most perfect place imaginable. The space elevator was anchored at sea level, in one of the few places the glittering expanse of ocean crept down to touch the edge of the City. Banking and pushing the throttle, he sprinted for the stretch of open water just as the two remaining hardsuits began firing again.

Briefly, it occurred to him that it was strange he had not been contacted via his comms lately by either the hardsuits or the patrol force strikercraft. Logically, he should have been contacted by the auto-trans system when he flew through the Middle Deck as well. He dismissed it as quickly as the thought came, they were likely arguing between each other over whose jurisdiction this action fell under and who gave the order for weapons free inside the city. Tucking down low among the buildings that bordered the city edge, he reached the low lip of the Northern wall at a tremendous clip. The surface of the Pedestrian Deck twenty meters below him abruptly vanished as he crossed over the low border and Ichigo pushed the nose down into a steep dive, skimming along the suns-facing hundred story outer wall. The shadow of his ship flickered over the solar panels and left them rippling in shimmering colors as they adjusted to the brief spot of darkness.

The ground looming before him, he pulled back and leveled off just as the hardsuits came hurtling over the edge as well. Angling towards the ocean and knowing his top-down profile against the ground made for optimum targeting resolution, his fingers tingled in anticipation now that he was out of the populated City. With a mental command and his hands firmly on the controls, the thruster vents flexed open to the their fullest capacity as raw plasmid accelerant was injected directly into the turbofan's exhaust column.

The solar panels behind Ichigo shattered in a huge radial pattern as the afterburners engaged, the shockwave of the broken sound barrier rolling out like thunder across the scrub covered ground.

In seconds the landscape changed from twilight-lit scraggly vegetation to late afternoon marshlands to sunlit, sparkling blue ocean as the fire-blackened interceptor streaked through the air. He had left his pursuers a decent distance behind him, their profiles small dots on the monitor displays, but the distance and speed were irrelevant here down on the planet. Trying to break atmo would present him too easy a target for far too long. The only solution he had at hand was something even he considered a gamble.

Cutting the afterburners and firing the braking thrusters, he dropped down fast from supersonic flight, crossing the threshold barely having enough time to rattle the ship. Sighing, he opened up the combat subsystems, loaded the firing control into his neural link, and gave himself weapons free. The gun bays across the ship slid open as he wheeled around low to face the oncoming hardsuits, engine wash throwing up sea spray in his wake.

He could tell by their shift in posture that they hadn't been expecting this, either they hadn't been informed this was actually an armed vessel, or they hadn't expected him to fly and shoot at the same time. Against a single target out in space where he didn't have to compensate for pesky things like atmosphere and gravity, he might have been at least formidable, if not dangerous. Planetside, with the surface of the ocean lapping beneath him as he brought the ship about to face them, it just looked like desperation. Something he was counting on.

One of the hardsuits flew up and out of ballistic attack angle, waving the other to engage. Obediently, the other snapped his huge assault rifle into a level position and pushed his thrusters to attack velocity, surging forward directly at him, sea spray steaming in his wake as he flew low over the waves.

Pushing his own throttle forward, Ichigo gave the command to fully retract the missile bay doors and he brought up their firing control sequence. Keeping his eyes aimed carefully at the hardsuit's rifle, he let the formulas and equations roll through his mind. A searing bolt of rifle fire narrowly missed the ship. Then another. Then another. In his mind's eye he could see the firing angle and attack vector of the hardsuit bearing down on him, and what he had presumed to be near impossible became obvious and trivial. The slight but significant adjustments he made could not properly be called standard evasive maneuvering, for in reality, he simply moved the ship into vectors that held the least probability of being hit with a gauss rifle shot. The hardsuit fired, missed, adjusted, missed, readjusted, missed, all in the space of seconds.

Belatedly, Ichigo realized he should probably launch his missiles. He and the hardsuit were moments away from whistling past each other and Ichigo quickly activated the release command for the salvo he had armed. Anticlimactically, they dropped straight from the bay and right into the ocean. Watching the target camera display as the hardsuit braked and pivoted, he could almost hear the pilot's startled shout followed by a disbelieving guffaw, no doubt finishing with hysterical laughter. Ichigo didn't bother banking for another pass and didn't even try getting a bead on him with the rear turrets or railguns, he just poured on the speed and snapped weapon bays closed again. The hardsuit had boldly flung itself back into pursuit and was about start firing again as Ichigo activated the detonation command for all the missiles he had dropped.

The ocean reached up and snatched the hardsuit, snuffing out his engines, destabilizing his I-Grav, and pulling him below the surface. Sinking below the murky water, Ikkaku's gleeful smile slowly faded into a frustrated grimace. His feet reaching the silt of the ocean floor, he sighed and began the long, trudging walk across the bottom towards the beach. The technicians were going to have their work cut out for them and it'd be unlikely that he'd hear the end of this for a long while.

Ichigo sent the ship climbing up higher into the sky, flying over the city and scanning around for the last remaining hardsuit.

Clunk... Clink clink.

The sound made him pause, trying to figure out what would make such an odd noise. Like someone tapping on a window. Looking up as he pondered, he noticed a shadow across the canopy where there should not be one. Directing his gaze up higher, he saw Captain Zaraki standing atop the interceptor and stooped over, the impact visor on his hardsuit's helmet pushed open and he was grinning madly down at him. He mouthed 'Just you and me now,' pointing alternately at each of them, the large mechanical fingers of the hardsuit's gauntlets somehow making it menacing and comical at the same time.

Staring up at the man, keeping his eyes locked on the captain's, Ichigo adjusted his flight path. Zaraki's mouth huffed into an annoyed, irritated line before the visor snapped back down and he launched himself up off the top of the interceptor. Just in time to avoid being hit by the construction crane Ichigo skimmed beneath. Retaliating, Zaraki fired a hail of rifle fire that tore the air around him, kicking up clouds of debris as the bullets hit the empty construction site below. Tipping the ship sideways, Ichigo shot through a narrow gap between two half-completed buildings and then cut immediately to the side, rocketing back into the jungle of towers and skywalks of the City.

Dipping and swerving around the buildings, doing his best to keep the hardsuit's line of fire from intersecting any populated area while still avoiding it himself, Ichigo barely had time to think save for one particular thought. Kenpachi Zaraki, he had concluded, was crazy. That, and flying against him was far different than flying against either of the other two. There were no tricks he could pull that Zaraki did not see immediately and compensate for, there was no level of evasive flying he could employ that managed to shake the marine captain with any degree of reliability. He was just about to grow desperate when a shuddering squeal shook the ship, the controls wrenching around beneath his hands. Shocked, he looked out to the right to see a fist-sized hole punched through the main wing. Refocusing beyond the wing of his ship, he could see a wing of strikercraft headed his direction, flying high above the city buildings but coming in fast. Desperation began to quickly set in.

* * *

The sensation of acute helplessness was a novel experience for Tatsuki Arisawa. And she was not enjoying it. She wanted desperately to do _something_ , but her only outlet thus far had been to shoot the most withering, incendiary glare at Chizuru Honsho that she could once she had noticed her red-headed manager had sidled up next to a visibly distraught Orihime.

"I don't understand," spoke one of her teammates, the entire group clustered around the room's main wall display panel. From a series of long-range viewpoints, the newsfeed was constantly shifting as gravi-cams spread around the scene of the pursuit tried to capture the action of Ichigo Kurosaki racing away from a trigger happy colonial space marine hardsuit. Tatsuki cocked her head at him as he went on, "He's totally avoiding all the skylanes, he's not going under the bridgewalks... All that traffic would be great cover, he could be throwing those hovercars into a panic or something, maybe one would hit that hardsuit."

"Ichigo wouldn't do that," Orihime answered in an anxious, slightly watery voice, keeping her eyes on the large display screen and her hands clasped tightly together over her chest. "People would be hurt or killed, so he's staying up above the congestion even though it's more dangerous for him."

Nodding, Tatsuki turned back to the display just in time to watch the blackened ship arc up from the fields of buildings and bank hard to the side, a few stray shots of rifle fire whistling past him. "He's done running," Tatsuki noted, paying close attention to his flying style. Orihime may knew how Ichigo thought, but it was Tatsuki who knew the way he flew. She earned a glance from Orihime as she finished, "He's thought of something." Together, they watched his ship swerve and race out of the city, this time headed directly into the deepening gloom of the ever-dark southern hemisphere.

* * *

Grimacing, he finally had had enough of Kenpachi's deadly games. There were people counting on him, he could no longer waste time trying to shake or disable the mad captain's hardsuit. Besides, there were plenty of holes in the plating of the ship and he was sure he did not want to add any more.

While the northern half of the planet, baring the extreme sun-baked desert of the pole, was covered in either vibrant and dense vegetation, or deep blue, crystalline ocean, the southern hemisphere was a cold and nearly lifeless wasteland. Trying to remain unpredictable, Ichigo alternated between flying low over the frost coated, boulder-strewn landscape and soaring up high into the air, hoping to become camouflaged by the starry night sky. The rifle fire was still spraying wildly behind him, throwing up bursts of rock and ice whenever they hit the ground out in front, like he wasn't even using his targeting computer.

Wasn't using his targeting computer... which meant he might not even be using his auxiliary piloting computer. Gunning his engines, Ichigo soared out into the darkening gloom, the idea he had conceived for getting rid of Zaraki getting re-categorized from patently ridiculous to tentatively plausible.

Engines burning bright through the darkness as he flew out into the night-shrouded side of the planet, he punched the throttle and pulled the nose into a steep climb. The rear display bracketed Zaraki, following right behind and lining up another shot at his exposed profile, up until Ichigo released the throttle and twisted the wing flaps, letting the ship stall out and begin to fall back to the surface.

Taking a hint from the maneuver he had performed in the _Zabi Maru_ , he adjusted the descent of the ship to turn a half circle before pushing the throttle back up again, letting free-fall inertia carry him into a speedy dive that he leveled off close to the ground. Whipping past Kenpachi, who had to brake, turn and re-accelerate, he did his best to put him out of his mind as he lined up his destination. Kenpachi could fly just as well as he could, had better handling and acceleration, and wasn't concerned with using his weapons in the city. So Ichigo decided to do the only thing he could think of to get rid of him.

He could feel the needles in his eyes again, growing sharp and hot as he focused. He let the formulas and equations blossom in his mind and spiral around their complicated relations, feeling their interactions as the values shifted and adjusted, permuted by hundreds of variables. To pull this off, just like how he'd overloaded the lockpad on the marine's ship, he'd have to try something he hadn't done before. Mustering his confidence, he descended into the complex pattern and let it wash over him as he tightened his fingers on the controls and pushed the throttle steadily forward.

"Faster."

The throttle met the red line but the ship was steady under his hands. He could go faster. The wind rolled around him creating tiny variations across the control surfaces, exhaust vents and wing edges that rippled their way through the model he was letting unfold within his mind. The formulas of physics dissolved into the equations of calculus written in the language of mathematics as his senses expanded into the machine, letting it come alive around him.

"Faster."

A shiver simultaneously shook the ship and traveled up his spine as he flew back the way he came. Towards the city. An eagerness was building inside, tingling his hands and clenching in his gut, strange but familiar. The feeling was curious, like a hunger, but deeper and vaster than anything he thought could be possible, and it yawned like a lightless pit within him. Fear, trepidation, unease, these were transitory, fleeting things as he was drawn down further into the rushing sensation of the purity of velocity, the essence of motion.

"Until the thrill of speed..."

His engines, and they were _his_ engines now, pushed forward, throwing away heat and light and sent him deep into the cold darkness in front of him. He raced the wind as it whipped over the cold ground, streaming its way towards the city as the southern wall rose from the horizon. The language of mathematics became the symphony of the universe.

"Overcomes the fear of death."

Embracing the pain as the needles burned in his eyes, the ship became an extension of himself. He could feel the buffets of air pressure across the skin of the white-burned-black ship, the burning power of her engines, the subtle vibrations around the control surfaces. Rational thought and calculated assessment had vanished, replaced by an entirely different piloting skillset based on instinct, intuition and sensation expressed purely by mathematical concepts. The line between mental model and physical existence was blurred and indistinct. Mathematics was a language he had known all his life, a music he had heard since childhood, and with it he rendered a reality where he could evaluate action and reaction a thousand different ways at once.

With Captain Zaraki again at his back and gaining on him, he didn't turn, didn't pull up, and didn't slow down. Instead, he simply flew straight, focusing on the huge air intake turbines filled with their spinning fan blades, reaping the wind to power the City. A grin had somehow made its way across his mouth as he watched the blades turning around and around in the brief seconds before he was upon them.

They spun slower than he could fly.

Just as the City was built in layers where the more affluent and powerful resided at the top, it was also built up towards the northern wall where the light of the suns shined more brightly. The Pedestrian and Middle Decks terminated short of the southern wall, both by design and pragmatically, while the Low Deck was exposed to the open air in the darker and colder southern sectors. It allowed the air moving through wind turbines to continually cool the processing plants and automated facilities at its base, which were the only things economical to build there. This meant, Ichigo realized, that all he had to do was clear the tunnel, pull the nose up, and activate the spatial drive system once he hit the upper stratosphere. Zaraki wouldn't follow him through the tunnel and he'd loose too much time going up and over the wall to try to follow him to orbit. Putting his plan out of his mind, he redoubled his concentration on the task at hand.

Never before had he attempted to model this degree of complexity, seeing formulas and equations represented not by numerals and variables so much as ephemeral, shifting concepts and notions. Rapidly approaching the mouth of the tunnel, the darkness within seemed to reach out to embrace him, robbing him of sight just as the thundering cacophony of the air and turbine rumbled deep inside his bones. The darkness was so thick it felt as if it was pressing on his needled eyes, but it made visualizing his model all the sharper. The flow of air past each spinning fan was like a river of light flowing down the tunnel, the rotations of the blades modeled in detail as they sliced through the air. He sunk deeper as he slipped past the first fan, zipping through the momentary gap as the blades just brushed the nose and tail of his ship.

He followed the river, making tiny corrections and adjustments derived from this base, instinctual level of mathematical processing. It let him slip past the second fan, then the third. Perhaps it was the act of moving too fast to think, down a path too narrow to travel, adjusting the course too quickly to keep track and with shifts too minor to consciously realize, but it was then that Ichigo began to hear... something. Strange, discordant phrases and bizarre, haunting melodies were slipping into the music. He was aware of new constants and functions at the fringes of his consciousness, alien and unnatural, hinting at non-linear dimensions of computation. Unsettled, he flicked his eyes for a fraction of a second to the rear targeting display and noted without emotion that Zaraki had followed him into the tunnel. He had only glanced away for hundredths of a second, but when he turned back to his mental model, bearing down on the fourth fan, the roar of the turbines and rush of air vanished, replaced by the sound of his own heart.

One beat. That's all there was time for. His meticulously crafted and impossibly detailed model of all the physics at work as he flew down the turbine shaft was suddenly, terrifyingly incomprehensible. Those strange and sinister, utterly alien mathematical concepts had overtaken his elegant and natural system, infecting it, corrupting it with exotic values and nonsensical truths. There was a sudden pressure in his mind, a horribly familiar density that led him to one single, inescapable realization. This place where he could safely retreat to, a place he had considered private, a place that was entirely his...

In this place, he was not alone. Beyond the swirling maelstrom of dynamic mathematical madness was an absolute darkness that he could peer into. And it peered back. One heart beat and the discovery was made. There was no time to process it, no time for alarm, no time at all. One beat, and he knew that these tiny adjustments and shifts were driven by this new model of nightmarish un-math, the alien variables and non-dimensional equations weaving around themselves in a distinctly unnatural way.

There were a half dozen fans in the tunnel, all spaced nearly a hundred meters apart. With a fascinated type of terror, Ichigo watched his own hand leave the manual flight system and depress a control to disengage the targeting computers from the wingtip mounted weapon pods. The fourth fan shot past, eerily silent. In two taps his traitorous hand released all the service lock overrides, his other tipping the craft marginally as it slid through the silently spinning fifth fan. As he neared the sixth fan, he watched, appalled, as he blew the emergency bolts at the wingtips, jettisoning the weapon pods.

There wasn't time to hear them hit the sides of the tunnel, the sixth fan shook his entire body with its deafening roar as he passed it, speeding out the exit of the turbine tunnel. Ichigo, suddenly back in command of his phantom arm after that ever so brief, but disturbingly terrifying moment, snapped his hand back to the controls and pulled the nose up hard. The weapon pods were both fitted with the ship's short range incendiary missiles. In an oxygen deprived environment they could sustain a four thousand degree emulsified chemical reaction for just over three and a half seconds.

In an oxygen _rich_ environment, such as a wind tunnel, the reaction created as the weapon pods bounced and careened into the sixth turbine fan, the missile warheads within instantly ignited as they were obliterated by the fan blades, could be described as nothing short of a catastrophic. Closing his eyes, he hadn't heard the weapon pods hit the tunnel, but he heard them hit the fan. Chancing one last glance at the rear view display, he could see the fire raging from the blown out turbine tunnel, blowing long and wide into the industrial sectors below it. Weakened by the blast, the section of the southern wall was buckling and other turbine tunnels were starting to collapse, their spinning fans tearing themselves apart and rippling a chain reaction across the area. A huge gout of flame continued to burn from the tunnel, like the breath of some mythical dragon, pouring destruction and chaos into the city.

Stunned, too shaken to contemplate the ramifications of actions that he had done, yet not done, Ichigo numbly activated the safety harness, webbing him into his seat. Gripping the arms as the chair leaned back, the main spatial engines spooling up as the air breathing engines pushed them as high as they were able, Ichigo heard it again. Like a far off cackle, a high pitched whisper of fevered madness, it slithered around his mind with a disturbing degree of ease. A straining whine grew through the cabin as the spatial engines lit, and right before Ichigo was slammed into his seat by the force of jumping to escape velocity, it spoke to him in a weird, echoing voice before retreating back to the depths of his mind.

_Hail to the king, baby._

The hammer dropped, and Ichigo's vision swam to black.

* * *

Rousing himself from semi-consciousness, Ichigo could feel his seat shifting back to a normal position. Every injury he had sustained lately was screaming its agony, and through the searing pain in his head he managed to watch the eternal twilight of Inzuri finally fade into night as the ship streaked away from the planet. The atmosphere thinned, the clouds broke and the red sky deepened to velvety black as the stars winked into existence around him. His exhausted pants finally turning to breaths of relief, Ichigo slumped back in the station chair as the ship slipped finally, gratefully into orbit. Closing his eyes and letting the dregs of the complex, interwoven strands of mathematical equations and physics formulas fade away, his mind was left blissfully blank and he released the controls to rub his eyes.

The planet hanging huge and bright above him flooded the cockpit with light, bright enough to glow blueish white through his eyelids. Rubbing his aching eyes with one hand, he reached out with his other to set the short range scanners to look for patrol force vessels in orbit. It would take a while before the terrestrial strikers could get cleared for spatial pursuit, but not forever.

Tapping against one of the console control screens, he paused, noticing something amiss. Tapping again, it finally registered that the familiar chime of an activating control wasn't playing in his ear. Cracking his eyes open, he looked down at his fingers splayed out against the control screens and cocked his head in utter incomprehension at what he saw.

The displays were dark.

All of the physical console screens, the flat slates of holo-enabled display panel that would normally hold all the controls necessary for working whatever system was loaded, were barren stretches of blank matte black. Confused, Ichigo tried reloading the display panel, the biofeedback command so ingrained in his mind it was second nature. It did nothing. His confusion deepening, he went so far as to tap experimentally against the display panel. It produced the same thunking noise it always did whenever he had tapped out commands on it, but this time still remained resolutely inert. Feeling curiously detached, like the ship was suddenly far away from him, he glanced around at the control consoles surrounding the pilot station.

The few dedicated high resolution screens set up above the consoles, like the main sensor display, were apparently operating normally. However, every single interactive display and panel was blank and lifeless. The main sensor screen was a stretch of glossy black, tinted and pulsing with green grid lines. There was no query loaded in it, and trying to issue one mentally produced no effect. Neither did pushing it to holographic mode.

After a spark of panic he told himself to calm down and that the ship was not dead around him. She had taken some damage, a few gauss rifle shots, some dents in the armor, but nothing that should have disabled anything. The dedicated displays were on, the power plant was still online, the engines and reactor were peacefully thrumming subtle vibrations through the ship. It just seemed to be the display interface was offline. Trying to think logically about this, he did his best not to grow alarmed at being unable to even call up the simplest of ship systems.

 _So, what drives the displays?_ he asked himself.

The ship's interface rendering system. _So what drives the renderers?_ The MPU hardware... Which also drives the console screens, which were working, so there wasn't anything specifically wrong with the ship's onboard computers. So if the MPU banks were okay, then go back to the renderers, where did they get their data?

An actual chime sounded through the ship, coming from the ship speakers. It was a comm request, he realized after a moment of sincere bewilderment. Why the comm system was chiming through the speaker and not through his aural implant was beyond him, and after another moment he realized in shock that he had no way to answer it. One of the physical displays next to him blipped to show 'Comm Channel Request' and Ichigo irrationally tried poking the screen, to no avail.

The chime sounded again and Ichigo, growing exasperated, threw up his hands before saying, "How am I supposed to open a comm channel if nothing is fucking working?"

The display blinking the comm request flashed and read 'Voice Command Enabled,' before it was replaced by, 'Comm Channel Established.'

"Oh great, the voice command system is working?" he muttered, "I'm gonna run this thing on two hundred year old technology..."

"Ichigo Kurosaki," the voice carried the weight of a glacier through the tiny speaker in the ship's cabin. "This is the captain of the _Scattered Blossoms_ , and I was not finished speaking to you."

"Hey Byakuya," Ichigo said, covering his surprise and pausing to look out the canopy. A huge ship was silently, steadily bearing down on him, cruising along the line of the Inzuri's horizon as if it straddled the border between the infinite black and the luminous planet. Styled similar to the hover-limo down on the planet, the ship was a marvel of technical precision that verged on the artistic, however its profile and bearing were far more aggressive. "Can you call back later? This really isn't a good time."

Byakuya Kuchiki's face appeared on the display screen, detached and collected once more. He must have been aboard that ship for visual comms to work. At close range, the light-lag was negligible and there was enough bandwidth to permit synchronized video comm channels. The further away you got, audio only comms were more common until the light-lag was severe enough that it forced asynchronized communications: sometimes recorded video or audio, but usually just text. Easy to encode, highly compressible, ubiquitous throughout the solar system, text based comm traffic was simple and efficient which meant it was the one used most often. Ichigo stared at the face of Byakuya Kuchiki, figuring they may as well be talking over written comms for all the emotion he was displaying. Of course, he realized, he would've needed a working control panel first. "Really, we're gonna have to cut this short."

"You seem unsurprised to see me."

"I thought you might turn up again."

"Tell me, why such haste? Even after all that's happened, you must realize you have no where to go, so why continue to run?" he asked coldly, the implication of cowardice was obvious.

Fighting the urge to rise to his bait, Ichigo flippantly replied, "Well, you know. Deaths to fake, marines to out-fly, patrol enforcers to evade, space ships to drive. I'm a busy guy." He kept his eyes on the blank display slates while still poking ineffectually at the consoles. He really did need to get the panels working again, the fact he could tell he was goading Rukia's brother by not bothering to look at him was just a bonus.

"Such callous disregard is telling of the quality of your character. As such, I will be brief, Firing Control," Byakuya Kuchiki said, turning slightly off camera, "You have weapons free."

Ichigo flicked his eyes up to the display, consternation creasing his brows more than usual. Byakuya wasn't the kind of guy to kid around with threats, and it was becoming clear that people aiming to kill you didn't usually waste time about it. The man's face was as serious and expressionless as ever, betraying nothing. However, the gunports across the front of his massive flagship were sliding open, revealing a very large number of weapon bays and turrets, all of which were very deadly looking and very much aimed his way.

"... You gonna shoot me, Byakuya?"

"The only remaining member of my family is now dead. I hold you responsible."

"She's not dead," Ichigo said simply.

Byakuya blinked at him for a moment before holding up a hand to stay his firing control officer. "I saw it, everyone saw it," he alleged.

No time like the present to come clean to the guy. "What you saw was exactly what she wanted you to see. She's been playing her part this whole job, just like she's been playing a part her whole life." Ichigo crossed his arms and smirked at him. "I don't think you really know her at all."

There was the briefest flicker of critical analysis across Byakuya's face as he considered what was said, muting the comm channel and turning off camera again, speaking to one of his bridge officers. The briefest flash of relief crossed his face before his eyes hardened back up, and he turned back to Ichigo with a new, different level of seriousness.

"It would appear that the evidence corroborates your story. The patrol force vessel that landed on my building and removed Rukia from the roof now cannot be located. It seems its transponder signal was a forgery and is now disabled, a common practice among illegally modified pirate ships."

Ichigo opened his mouth to reply but Byakuya smoothly continued. "Your own actions support your claim as well. You would not have made such a dramatic-"

"But effective," Ichigo managed to interject, his injuries making him feel a bit punchy. He deflated slightly as he recalled his final maneuver, wondering darkly as he glanced back at his hand.

"-Escape," Byakuya continued darkly, "Had you not been trying to keep eveyones' attention on yourself. I doubt anyone was even paying attention to that patrol force vessel as it lifted off the planet."

"Well that sure is convenient," Ichigo replied. _If unintentional,_ he thought to himself.

"However, while this changes the situation for Rukia, it does not change things for you. I offer you this one warning: Tell me where she is, or I will open fire. If you refuse, know that I am perfectly capable of locating her through other means, but it would waste precious time."

Ichigo cocked his head at him. "And what are you going to do once you find her? You think you're going to keep her safe?"

"Her safety is my primary concern, but no one is above the law, not even the two of you. She will comply with the government's investigation, the truth will be revealed and justice will prevail."

Ichigo scoffed, "Truth? Justice? We've been professionally, expertly framed and you're going to put your faith in a government investigation? The same one that just stripped you of your nobility? The same one that is dismantling your corporate empire right in front of you? And you think you'll be able to what? Hide Rukia from them somehow?"

"You know nothing of the nature of my motivations," Byakuya uttered, "Nor the reach of my resources. She has abandoned the post on Karakura Station which I procured for her to keep her from harm, she has returned to the company of pirates and criminals, she has been accused of a dozen serious crimes, she is dangerously close to blatant vigilantism and all of these things stem from her involvement with you. I vowed to provide it and now, more than ever, Rukia requires my protection."

"Now I _know_ you don't know her at all. Trust me, Rukia doesn't need anyone's protection, least of all yours. I'm lucky she tolerates me as much as she does and she and I are-" Ichigo paused, his mouth hanging open. Lovers? Partners? Was she his girlfriend? Was it more?

"You and she are what, exactly?" Byakuya asked, his eyes narrowing fractionally in suspicion.

"She and I," Ichigo deflected, "Have unfinished business to get wrapped up. So that's what we're going to do, uncover the _real_ truth and clearing our names."

"And you think you are in a better position to assist her with that than I? Need I remind you of your current predicament?"

"Eh," Ichigo waved it away, "I'm getting used to having guns pointed at me, if I was afraid of dying I don't think I would've jumped off a building for her, do you?"

Byakuya said nothing for a moment, a calculating look on his face, before, "You must care for her very deeply, to risk so much for her..."

Ichigo thought for a moment, his mind reviewing all that had transpired lately. What had happened to them, the direction their relationship had headed... had it really only been a few days ago that they were boarding the _Red Princess_ together?

"No matter how far you have _fallen_ for her," Byakuya continued, his words loaded, "You have obviously forgotten one thing."

Ichigo stared at him through the display. "And what's that?"

"That it is not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop."

Ichigo's head snapped back, realizing the direction Byakuya was headed. "And if I don't tell you what you want to know, then you're going to deliver that sudden stop, is that it?"

"If need be," Byakuya replied evenly.

"You know there is a flaw in that saying?" Ichigo said, casually leaning back in his seat. For some reason, the ship suddenly didn't feel so far away from him anymore. More like she was just patiently waiting for him, eager to spring back into action.

"Of course," the ex-noble agreed, "It's that you should never jump in the first place."

"No Byakuya," Ichigo corrected, spying the wedding ring he still wore on his finger, "It's that you should never stop falling. Maybe you've forgotten that."

There was a momentary crack in Byakuya's glacial facade and incandescent rage flashed through it. "Ichigo Kurosaki, it was a mistake to involve yourself with my sister. A mistake I will now correct."

Ichigo rolled his eyes at how melodramatic Byakuya could apparently be, but he couldn't help but wonder if he might have overstepped his bounds. It was the two glittering sparks that flared out from the weapon bays on Byakuya's flagship that told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had.

The panels around him burst into shimmering, multicolored light, the controls of every system on board glittering before him with a surreal, ghostly projection. Whether it was the dazzling light from the consoles or the sudden denseness in his head, his eyes felt like they had suddenly dried out and were cracking apart inside their sockets. The density, he realized, stemmed from the fact that every readout, system status and operable monitor were rolling their results through his mind. With a flick of his hands and the barest of thoughts, the engines flared beyond safe operating limits and Ichigo was thrown into the seat, veering quickly out of the paths of the two missiles.

He didn't know quite what was going on, but he had a level of control over the ship like never before. Hard-set tolerance thresholds were now just mere suggestions, reactor levels, engine outputs, drive chamber ratios... all were suddenly variable well beyond ordinary values. What's more, his cracked ribs, the bruises across his body and the cuts across his face and arms, they were nothing. He felt fine. In fact, he smirked to himself, he felt pretty damned good. With a thought, the forward railguns slid from behind their paneling and the firing controls blossomed in his mind. He pulled the flight controls, dropping the throttle and pivoting the ship around to face Byakuya again.

"You're going to have to do better than tha-" Ichigo's voice cut off, the flagship was gone.

"You're slow, Ichigo Kurosaki," Byakuya said. Ichigo spun around in his seat, finally seeing the flagship somehow behind him. His vision was dominated by another pair of blinding yellow-white sparks, spiraling together and growing big enough to light up the night of space.

"Even as you fall."

* * *

(Thirty six seconds earlier)

"Looks like he made it to orbit, I'm getting a clear ident signal from your ship," Shuhei said, looking back over his shoulder as Renji and Rukia stepped onto the bridge.

"Set course to intercept, let's go pick him up before the patrol force does," Renji huffed, falling into the captain's chair. Shuhei nodded and flicked a few controls, sliding the heavy cruiser around and bearing down on the signal origin. A few more flicks of his fingers brought up a visual of the interceptor on a secondary screen, floating serenely just as another large vessel fired its braking thrusters, coming to a halt nearby.

The eagerness she felt at seeing Ichigo safely off the planet began to dissipate, replaced by concern. "That's my brother's ship, what's he doing here in orbit?" Rukia said, her thin eyebrows drawing together as she moved to stand behind Shuhei. In comparison, her precious ship was a tarnished, beaten speck next to the grandeur of the flagship of the House of Kuchiki.

The comms blipped to life of their own accord, Shuhei snatching his fingers away from the panels in mild alarm as the speakers through the bridge crackled with static.

"Rukia? Rukia!" Kon's voice called out, slightly fuzzed with interference.

"Kon? What are you-"

"Forget that! I'm monitoring the comm traffic between Ichigo and Byakuya, you need to hurry and get there. If Ichigo sticks his foot any deeper into his mouth, I'm pretty sure your brother will shoot him... Oh... damnit."

Everyone on the bridge watched a pair of bright flashes race out from the bow of the flagship, arc through the starry blackness of space and then flash harmlessly past the small, black streaked ship as it suddenly swerved out of the way. Everyone but Rukia blew a breath of relief, she was busy trying open a comm, she knew this tactic, she knew what was coming, and she only looked back to the viewport when she heard everyone else's breath hitch. From the bow of her brother's flagship, burst-accelerated into a new attack vector, she watched two more missiles spiral out into the darkness...

And slam directly into the _Sode no Shirayuki_.

Rukia suddenly couldn't breathe. It was like she was watching something that wasn't real, couldn't be real. Everything happened so fast that there was no time to act, only react. In silent horror she watched as the starboard wing and engine juncture was blasted apart, the impact flash twisted, bulged and shredded whatever it did not vaporize. One of the air processor systems had ignited, oxygen spraying out in a huge jet and burning with an orange-purple flame against the black backdrop of space.

The force sent the little ship spinning in a dizzying tumble. Both engines lost containment and the resulting plasma reaction wrenched them in different directions, tearing the weakened hull apart and splitting the ship apart. Shards of metal framework and plating, some still glowing with the heat from explosion, went scattering out from the broken, jagged remains and glittered in the light from the planet.

In moments, horrible, agonizing, thousand-year moments, it was over. The light from the fire died to embers flickering across what was left of the _Sode no Shirayuki._ The display screen showed, in intricate, nauseating detail, that nothing but a splintered, drifting wreckage remained, knocked from orbit and slowly tumbling down towards the planet.

"Ichigo." It was her first thought, the first word from her lips, the only image her mind conjured as she watched the ruin floating slowly away. She didn't know if she screamed it or whispered it. Her throat felt constricted, her chest felt like ice, her legs felt numb and hands were clenched so tightly that she could feel her short nails digging into the flesh of her palms.

Kon said something over the comm channel he still had open.

The words didn't immediately register to her. Suddenly numb, her mind blank and eyes unfixed, staring into the black, words fell from her lips laced with confusion and denial. "Wha-what?"

"Listen, I'm-" The comm channel snuffed out in a crack of static. A chime rang across the bridge and Rukia immediately reached over Shuhei's shoulder and hammered the control to re-open the comm channel.

"Ko-" Her throat seized up as the image of her brother came up on the main viewport overlay, the first time she had seen him directly in years.

"Rukia."

"Brother." Her own voice sounded flat in her ears, void of emotion. Her mind was still reeling and she was finding it difficult to think coherently. The only thing she seemed capable of processing was the image of the explosion that had killed Ichigo and destroyed her ship. She turned away, unable to look at him but all she could see out the other viewport were the remains of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ spread against the backdrop of the white clouds of Inzuri.

"You will board the _Scattered Blossoms_ immediately," he ordered, "Through the legal representation I have obtained for you, you will contact the proper authorities to answer for the crimes you have been accused of. You will do this before this situation gets any more unmanageable and publicly embarrassing."

"I... will..." She repeated dully, staring at him. Even after all these years, he hadn't changed. Issuing orders from an unassailable position of moral superiority, pedantically adhering to the letter of the law. All the while his disapproval and distaste for her presence was clear. She had thought to have put it all behind her, but faced with it so suddenly, now inextricably linked to the image of those missiles cutting through the darkness and tearing her ship apart. Tearing Ichigo away from her. The numbness that had filled her body fled, and in its wake left a hatred, long-suppressed and white hot, more powerful than any she'd felt before. She didn't dare try to retreat from this emotion, box it up and return to the falsehood of a calm, analytical soldier. No, she welcomed it.

The gun ports realigned to take aim at the _Zabi Maru_. "Yes, you will. I will not tolerate this situation to continue, and I will do what is necessary to remove obstacles impeding its resolution."

Rukia paused a moment, silently seething while leveling a stare at Byakuya through the comm channel. "You vindictive bastard." His eyes widened slightly as he snapped his lips shut, taken aback. She didn't care anymore. She let the years of hurt and bitter resentment feed the fire of her anger, "Still so wrapped up in your pain and loss... Do you still _hate_ me so much? Because I lived, instead of her? Do you think a day goes by that I don't miss her, that I don't feel _guilty?_ She was all I had, but when she was gone I didn't miss her just for me..."

"Rukia, I-"

"I missed her for _you._ The one who swept her up, away from her terrible life and made her feel cherished. I was her sister, I did what I had to so we could survive, learned how to keep functioning despite... But not you. You _needed_ her. Look at you, what you've become. Without her, you're cold, dead. Hollow."

"Rukia, stop-"

A tear rolled down her cheek. "No. No one's pain matters but your own. No one's loss is anything compared to yours. No one is worth a damn except her, and you know what brother? You were right, Hisana was the only one who mattered... Until you murdered Ichigo. I _killed_ people when I was a pirate. I killed pirates when I was a soldier. I killed hollows when I was in covert ops. And I would've _killed_ _anyone_ for Ichigo. And you took him away from me."

"If I had-"

"Go back to your empty mansion, brother. Back to your empty life. Take all your pain and loss and hatred and resentment with you. I hope you _choke_ on them." She turned to Renji, vision blurred by unshed tears. "Get me away from here."

It was difficult to be certain, but onlookers would later swear that for a second, Byakuya appeared honestly wounded by Rukia's words. "I will not permit that," he said, finding his voice. "Rukia _must_ come with me, and I will use force if necessary."

"He's bluffing," Renji assured her, watching the exchange with a curious intensity, "He wants you back, he's not about to risk killing you by opening fire."

"From this attack vector I can disable your engines and attitude controls with little effort, and I have an armed boarding party standing by. I am well within my rights as a colonial citizen to recover a member of my family being held by known criminal elements, despite her protests. The law is in my favor but I am offering you the chance to avoid further bloodshed," Byakuya said. The certainty in his voice was chilling.

Renji continued to shake his head in response. "No way. He knows we're armed, he can't risk a firefight with what looks like a patrol force ship, even if we really aren't. Sensors and video from the traffic control sats around Inzuri are picking us right now. The news would send it around the system and, after what just happened in parliament, he'll never live it down."

"An astute observation, but you forget, your transponder signal is disabled and you were discovered en route to Ichigo Kurosaki's orbital location. It would be clear to any investigator that your ship is disguised and your actions are complicit with his. Any resulting combat action could be explained away as retaliatory for his death... and ultimately futile."

The fire within her was spent, leaving her swaying on her feet at the mention of his death and feeling cold and empty inside. She could recognize the futility of it all, but before Rukia could speak, Renji stood from his chair, glaring daggers at Byakuya. Shocked by the naked anger on his face, she could only stare as Renji drew himself up to his full height.

"You want Rukia so bad, then you're going to have to come her and _take_ her from me," Renji hissed out through clenched teeth, "Shuhei, go weapons hot." Quietly, as if promising himself, he uttered, "I am not loosing you to this guy, again."

"No, stop Renji," Rukia said quietly. She couldn't let it happen again, she knew if Byakuya did not get what he wanted, that he would hardly stop at killing Ichigo. "Shuhei, please prep a shuttle for immediate launch."

"Cancel that order Hisagi," Renji snapped. "Rukia, what are you doing?"

She laid a somber hand against his chest, the first time she had touched him since she had left him so long ago, and just like always, he calmed immediately. "You can't fight him, not for me. I just want this over, I don't care anymore. You have to let me go." She had believed, just maybe, with Ichigo the two of them stood a chance against whoever was conspiring against them. But that chance was gone.

"I am glad you have come to your senses, Rukia," Byakuya said, his face still the same expressionless slate as before.

His continual sanctimonious, authoritarian attitude fanned the few remaining sparks of her anger but she barely summon the will to do more than level a glare at him. "It appears I do not have a choice, brother," she said coldly before her shoulders drooped, lost and hopeless.

Renji had never seen her so forlorn and defeated. She didn't even look like herself. "You do have a choice. We're getting the fuck out of here, Shuhei!" Renji ordered.

"An unwise decision," Byakuya said, the barest hint of a pained expression crossing his face before he turned to his side. "Firing Control, disable their engines."

"Not so fast, Byakuya," came another voice over the comm channel, the connection cracking and popping as a third line was spliced in.

Through the comm channel, Rukia watched perplexed as the panels and stations in Byakuya's periphery suddenly darkened and went offline. His crew exclaimed in surprise and disorder rippled across his bridge. Checking out the viewport, the lights across his flagship were suddenly extinguished, his engines offline and weapon systems disabled.

Byakuya's eyes widened slightly in recognition. "What is the meaning of this, Princess Shihoin?"

"Not 'princess' anymore," she said lightly, "It's liberating, actually."

"What have you done to my ship, Yoruichi?" he demanded.

In a spark of realization, Rukia leaned over and adjusted the zoom on the viewport, focusing in on the top of his flagship and spying a pair of figures standing atop it, magnetic boots stuck fast to the hull. One, dressed in a sleek black and orange softsuit, turned to wave at the _Zabi Maru._ There, at the figure's feet, was the last thing she expected to see but the only possible explanation she could think of.

"I've put a shackle on it, Byakuya," Yoruichi replied, not even trying to hide the humor in her voice. "All your systems are offline except comms and life support, you can't even open an airlock to come out remove it. That should keep you out of trouble for a little while."

Dumbfounded, Rukia watched Byakuya's eyes narrow dangerously as he turned to address her once more, the light of the perpetually rising suns behind his ship.

"It needn't have been this way, sister." The comm channel shut down with a snap, replaced by the image of his darkened flagship. The two figures on top had disappeared, and Shuhei rolled the zoom back to normal before bringing up a short range sensor display, pinpointing the tiny forms as they zipped across the gulf of space separating the two vessels.

"Decompress the main airlock and open the outer door," Renji said, sitting back down in his chair and glancing at Rukia.

The offer was there in his eyes, their weapons were still hot and Byakuya's silvery vessel was powerless. "No," Rukia said, looking out at the listing flagship. She would not resort to base revenge, as much as her heart may have wanted her to. It would ultimately accomplish nothing but the loss of her integrity as a soldier of colonial navy and officer of the G-13. A soldier. Now that he was gone, that's all she was. Unsettled, she tried to turn her thoughts away from the confusing identity she'd developed with Ichigo, and the shell that remained without him.

She tried not to think of what she might have been.

The sound of the main airlock repressurizing drew her attention in time for her to see the inner door slid open. Stepping out from the green glow of the airlock status light, Yoruichi removed her helmet and shook out her long violet hair, offering them a dazzling white smile. With a pang of resentment, Rukia glared at the woman, seeing nothing worth smiling about. Yoruichi caught her eye and the smile fell away as she moved more fully out of the airlock.

"We have something of yours," Yoruichi said, speaking to Rukia as the other figure stepped onto the ship. Stooping slightly to clear the airlock door frame, the figure stood back up and took a few steps towards her.

"Listen, Kisuke I'm not..." Rukia's brows creased as she realized what the figure was wearing: a goldtone re-entry hardsuit, complete with orbital control system. It was a LEO class, the heat shielding across the helmet and shoulders purposefully designed to resemble a lion's mane. Her eyes fell to the figure's hand to see what it carried. Ichigo's stolen marine flightsuit helmet.

Her heart shattered.

Marine flightsuits weren't pressurized and their helmets were designed to work with their own cockpit oxygen supplies, something her ship didn't have.

"Not that," came Kon's voice from inside the hardsuit, tossing aside the helmet. "This." He reached up and opened the chest paneling, lifting the frame and unlatching the pilot enclosure. The man inside stumbled limply forward and would have pitched heavily to the deck had Rukia not instinctively reached to guide him down.

"I.. Ichi-"

Falling to his knees before her, Ichigo barely had the strength to remain upright. Turning his sunburned face up to hers, he cracked open his eyes, ice crystals falling down his cheeks as he was able to just make out her stricken, overwhelmed expression. He managed to bring one rough hand up, lightly touching the soft skin of her cheek and through the ice he could see her own eyes, gleaming like wet, polished sapphires. His tongue, raw and burned from boiled saliva, felt thick as he slurred, "What's that look for?" He then slumped into unconsciousness.

She stared down at the man lying passed out and cradled in her arms before shaking her head, her eyes softening. "...You dummy..."

"Can someone please explain to me what the hell just happened?" Renji demanded, shifting his gaze from Ichigo to Rukia to Yoruichi.

"Sure thing," came a response from the comm system. Urahara's enthusiastic, smiling face appeared on the viewscreen, leaning back comfortably in his captain's chair. "But it might take a while."

* * *

**Out-takes and bloopers:**

Act 3, Scene 2 - Setting: Bridge of the _Zabi Maru_

Yoruichi (humorously): "I've put a shackle on it, Byakuya. All your systems are offline except comms and life support, you can't even open an airlock to come out remove it. That should keep you out of trouble for a little while."

Byakuya (addressing Rukia, background is sunrise over the planet Inzuri): "It needn't have been this way, sister. You find yourself in... bad company."

Rukia (humming softly): "... and I can't deny..."

Yoruichi (louder): "Bad, bad company..."

Renji (beginning to laugh): "'Til the day I die."

All cast members (loud and off key): "Rebel souls! Deserters we've been called! Chose a gun, and threw away the sun! Now these moons, they all know our name! The railgun sound, is our claim to fame!" (all pause and look expectantly at Byakuya in the viewscreen)

Byakuya (irritated, rolling his eyes): *sighs* "And that's why they call you..."

Shuhei (imitating electric guitar): "bum… Bum… BUM!"

All: "BAD COMPANY!"

Triple-Helix (waving a sheaf of papers around): "Stick to the script!"


	24. Double Blind

Consciousness returned to him in pieces, slowly and grudgingly. The first thing he was really aware of was how luxurious it felt to be lying on whatever it was beneath him, how it could lull him back to sleep. Sleep, blessed sleep; it was all he wanted to do. Surely no one would blame him for that, he could just roll over and go back to sleep atop whatever this nice soft thing was. Perhaps it was a cloud or cottonball. Or, he thought, nodding sagely to himself, a giant marshmallow.

Yep, he'd just snuggle down on his enormous marshmallow and go back to dreaming about Rukia and how nice it was to kiss her, even though his lungs were starting to burn with need of air. Oh well, kissing her was worth it. Why she was painted half black with stars all over her was odd though, and why was Inzuri on fire? Maybe it had something to do with this mirror he had in his hands, which was reflecting the opposite color of everything? His reflection sure was strange looking, why was it grinning at him so weirdly?

Ichigo jerked himself away from his fevered and foggy half-dreams with as much physical effort as he could muster, still bone weary but desperate to get away from such bizarre imagery. Muted voices around him spoke in disjointed, echoing phrases that rolled about his brain without meaning or interpretation. Turning his head towards them, all that greeted him was darkness in his vision and a weight across his face. He felt someone take his limp fingers in theirs, the touch was warm and soothing and he felt calmed by it.

"Ichigo, can you hear me?"

"Rukia?" he tried to say, but a frog had apparently taken up residence in his throat because all that came out was a hoarse croaking noise.

"I'm here, just lie still. Your head is clamped in a pro-gen cuff to repair your eyes. We were afraid we were going to have to replace them, but you got lucky."

He didn't feel lucky. It occurred to him after several long seconds of furious thought why he didn't feel lucky, why he didn't feel anything at all, and why it was so infuriatingly difficult to think clearly. He had been drugged. He worked very hard at tightening his fingers around her hand, hoping to convey the seriousness of his request as he wheezed out, "No drugs."

"I know, they dosed you before I could say anything," Rukia whispered, "I can turn on the filters if you want, but are you sure? It'll... hurt."

Ichigo nodded his head but quickly stopped, the motion making him woozy. Pain he could live with, but this detached, befuddled sensation... he could not. He felt her hand slip away before a low humming began nearby. He briefly considered humming along until he felt the cool sensation of filtered blood seeping into the crook of his elbow. The chill of it started in his arm and quickly spread to his chest, feeling like someone had poured ice water through his veins.

And with the cold came pain. The scuffs and bruises he had thought were minor suddenly weren't, combined with the cuts he had endured while getting scooped up in the ship cockpit and the dull ache he felt in his ribs that had never managed to fully heal yet, they were all combining into a throbbing mass of pain as the drugs were leeched out of him.

"Ow."

"Just be glad you were out for at least a little while, Hanataro had at least six different cuffs and pads on you. The only one left is on your head." She swatted his hand away as he tried to bring it near his face. "And don't touch it."

Ichigo let his hand drop to the bed he was on, the starchy sheets feeling coarse beneath his fingers, smelling faintly of bleach. His fingers longed for her touch again but he could hear voices coming from far off. Taking stock of himself as his mind began to sharpen, he was sitting half-propped up on a bed, his head feeling heavy with the cuff across his eyes and his arms stiff and sore, tethered to different intravenous lines. His mouth was dry and parched and running his numb-feeling tongue around didn't seem to help. "Hanataro? The..." he wracked his mind, "The guy at the bar?"

"I'm pretty good with a pro-gen pad," chirped up another voice, eager and nasal all at once. "Any time a fight broke out, Mister Abarai had me patching up the wounded." Ichigo nodded his head conversationally, but halted quickly. He really had to stop doing that. Instead, he set it safely back down against the pillows behind him. "I'm just glad you weren't more seriously injured. I mean, you had a lot of contusions, a cracked bone here and there, collapsed lung, some soft tissue swelling, and you simultaneously burned your face and froze your eyes during decompression... really it could have been a lot worse. It was hard enough to diagnose you since your-"

"Not seriously injured?" Ichigo chuckled humorlessly. He tried shifting himself up a bit and noticed a strange snug sensation across his upper body. Touching his chest, he turned to where he thought Rukia to be, whispering, "What am I wearing?"

From a few feet to the side where he was looking he heard her. "A pressure shirt. Don't give me that look, you were wrecking yourself without it. Full gravity on the station to half grav on the _Red Princess_ to zero grav, back to half, back to near full on the planets, down to a quarter inside the asteroid, then to zero again... " she said crossly. Still, Ichigo managed to hear the barest quiver of concern in her voice as she went on. "Getting depress'd was the last straw, your blood pressure is all screwed up so don't give me any lip about it."

"Yeah yeah," he grumbled at her, grudgingly appreciating her concern despite how much he felt like an idiot wearing it, he finished with a simple, "Thanks, Rukia." There was a pause, in which he imagined her expression shifting from frustrated annoyance at him into exasperated dismissal. He smirked knowingly as she answered.

"Well, alright then."

The silence went on, just to the limit before it became awkward. "Where are we?" His voice still sounded like someone else.

"Med-bay of the _Zabi Maru_ ," she answered before the sound of the door sliding open quieted her further.

"Ah, you're awake," spoke a familiar, overly friendly voice. "And how are you feeling today?"

"Urahara," Ichigo muttered. Even with his eyes covered he could well imagine the grin on his face stretching up to, but not quite meeting his eyes, shadowed beneath his ash blond hair. "I feel like crap." He was also thirsty, but he wasn't about to admit it and then owe him anything more, even a drink. "What are you doing here?" he grumbled.

"Mister Abarai has graciously allowed me aboard as we head to our next destination," Kisuke replied, chuckling as Rukia smacked Ichigo's shoulder in admonishment of his tone, to which he gaped at her, making a show of her betrayal.

"Wait, destination? Where are we going?" Ichigo asked, noting the phrasing of Urahara's answer.

"All in good time, young man, now... Tell me, do you remember anything?" Urahara asked, uncharacteristic intensity underpinning his voice.

He remembered Byakuya up in orbit, arguing about something, and there was fire all around him, then darkness; the details were fuzzy. But before that, like night and day, his memory was clear. With uncanny precision, Ichigo could remember the flight down the wind turbine. The ease at which he had dodged the first three fans, and the momentary, oily blackness that had seized him, wresting control of his mental calculations and guiding him past the last three while dropping the weapon pods. Ichigo could feel his lips involuntarily curling away from his teeth and he forced himself to stop. "No. It's all blank," he lied evenly.

"Oh," Urahara replied with a shrug in his voice, "Well maybe we should fill you in on what's happened."

Urahara made himself comfortable on the end of the bed _,_ using his cane to tug Ichigo's legs out of the way and earning himself a glare that was only somewhat effective, obstructed as it was by the thick band on Ichigo's face. Kisuke cleared his throat to cover his amusement before he spoke. "Now, you obviously know how it all started, you two snuck into the inner orbits behind a comet of your own making. Once you were in position and clear of the trail, you headed to Inzuri and since you hadn't modified your ident transponder it was broadcasting your presence for everyone to see. Now, you also had your comms on and had broadcast two encrypted messages, one to the _Zabi Maru_ , and the other to the _QNC Longbow_. Since both of them were just on the other side of the Rukongai Belt, they were picked up and acted on pretty fast, lucky for you." A slow smile spread on his face. "I understand Renji Abarai being willing to drop everything and come to your aid, but what exactly could you offer Mister Ishida?"

"A copy of the data taken from the Kuchiki mainframe," Uryu said, his voice carrying as he slipped into the room. Ichigo could just imagine him pushing his glasses up his nose before he went on, "The locations of Hollow encounters and patrol routes of G-13 operatives will make my own patrols all the more effective in the outer orbits."

"And c'mon, I had a very good reason to help out Rukia," Renji interjected, his boots clomping the floor as he swaggered in. "The security token from Captain Zaraki's datastore is letting us masquerade the _Zabi Maru_ as an actual patrol force ship to anyone who doesn't bother examining us too closely, which is unlikely seeing as how we're on this 'diplomatic escort' mission."

Ichigo noticed that the fact that no one could have known in advance that she'd be handed that datastore was left conspicuously unsaid.

"Well," Kisuke continued, "What you didn't know is that among the people who picked up your transponder signal was your former commanding officer, Captain Jushiro Ukitake, who is also one of the few people who had been informed of my location. Following you from a discreet distance, he was kind enough to keep me apprised of your situation as it developed, so we knew when to make our move and facilitate your escape."

"Thank you for that," Rukia said honestly.

"Jushiro knew where you were? So where've you been all this time? We've been working our asses off here-"

"Ah yes, collecting rogue A-I's and..." he cleared his throat and continued archly, "Spending quality time together in abandoned agriculture asteroids?"

If he could see, Ichigo would've been sure Rukia's cheeks had tinged to pink. "Kon," he ground out, embarrassed that the A.I. had apparently been less than discreet.

"Yes, well. There was some debriefing-" Urahara began.

"Hey," Renji interrupted, his voice sharp, "Can we just skip who is doing what what with whose briefs?"

"-And you, Ichigo, owe a lot to Kon," Kisuke continued. "This part of your plan, Rukia, really surprised me."

"Thank you Urahara," Rukia said, clearing her throat. Ichigo smiled privately to himself, he could hear the tiny flustered tick in her voice, no doubt caused by the allusion to how they had spent their time in the asteroid. "We knew we wouldn't be able to pull off the plan without someone blowing our cover, there's just too much information saturation in a place like Inzuri to be totally discreet. So, instead we planned it as part of our exit strategy. Kon was really central to it working, like an insurance policy, in case things went really wrong."

"Like jumping off a building, wrong," Kisuke said lightly. "Go on Rukia, this is my favorite part."

"Well, we needed Kon to be in a place where he could act, not stuck in a shackled ship," Rukia explained. "And since we knew someone would figure us out at some point, logically they'd call up to marine impound and demand the artifact be brought down to planetside security. Of course, they wouldn't admit to what it is, just 'the object inside the dampening container' delivered as soon as possible." Rukia shrugged, the material sliding over her skin with the motion, making Ichigo wish he could see it instead of just hear it. "So we put Kon's processor core in there instead of the artifact.

"At some point, someone opened the canopy and took what was assumed to be the artifact and secured it inside a re-entry hardsuit. As soon as he had power again, Kon took control of the suit's motor systems and radios, sealed up the harness and started sending various instructions to systems all over the _CNC Demon Light_."

"So it was Kon, during all the confusion, that took the shackle off the ship and flew it down by remote to catch you," Kisuke explained to Ichigo. "He then tossed himself out an airlock and waited in orbit for you guys to show up. If he hadn't stuffed you inside that suit of his after Captain Kuchiki blew up the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , you would've died out there, Ichigo." Kisuke let the statement hang ominously in the air.

Ichigo sighed to himself. "I suppose I should thank him, is he hooked up to your computer systems?"

"Nope," Renji replied. Ichigo was halfway through the mental command to open a wireless connection in his neural link, but halted before he finished. "He's still in that hardsuit, says he likes it in there."

Leaning his head back again, Ichigo let go of a long breath before turning towards where he thought Rukia was. "I'm sorry, about your ship."

Her voice was the soul of understanding but was still tight in her throat, "It's alright, just focus on resting. You're going to need your strength."

"I am?" he asked, "For what?" Idly, he toyed with the idea of opening a medical link of his own, letting the diagnostics resolve behind his closed eyelids. Numbers. Equations. Variables that held values, values that held meaning... Like glass shattering, a flicker of memory broke his recovering mood. That black smile, that oily voice inside his skull. With a shudder he suddenly felt unclean, contaminated so thoroughly it made him sick.

He tried telling himself it could have been anything, really. That presence, that malicious, malignant entity that had roused into action for the briefest of moments. The tightbeam receiver was enabled while he was planetside, it was possible that patrol enforcers could've uploaded a link phage into the MPU hardware, something that bordered the level of a V.I. ghost. It might have even been a neural lensing from one of the strikercraft, despite the fact that neural lenses were a legal gray area. It might have even been another A.I. trying to jump aboard, but it was unlikely. A.I.s were rare in the first place and strictly concerned with self-preservation; there were safer, less flashy ways to escape a planet. It may have _felt_ like an A.I. feedback presence, like Kon, but somehow it wasn't the same. He dropped the half-formed biofeedback command to open the diagnostics with a sigh. No sense in digging into his neural link for that... thing, until he was ready.

"So, what happened to the real artifact then?" Kisuke asked.

There was a rustle of fabric before Rukia spoke up. "You mean this artifact?"

"That's the one," Kisuke replied merrily, "I suppose we'll need to work up a new containment field for it, if you please?"

Ichigo could almost hear the urgency in her stride as she stepped over to him, her soft boots whispering against the ground. "Good riddance, that thing gives me the creeps."

"Thank you all the same," Kisuke said, "I'll just meet you outside, I need to discuss one more thing with Ichigo."

They must have known what it was because Renji and Hanataro withdrew without another word, while Rukia lightly touched the skin of his arm as she walked past. Confused, Ichigo noted the absence of something familiar and only realized the echo of her sensory resonance was gone from his mind as the door slid shut behind her.

"Ichigo, by now must have noticed something... missing."

 _Not really_ , he thought to himself. Sure, Rukia's echo was gone but it was unlikely that Urahara was referring to something so private. Besides, even if the remnants of their feelink had faded in the mean time, it wasn't like they couldn't spark it back up again next time they-

"Have you noticed," Urahara went on, oblivious to Ichigo's mental sidetrack, "That none of the displays here in the med bay are showing up behind your eyelids, even though they're marked public?"

No, it hadn't occurred to him. But now that he mentioned it, it was rather odd.

"Or the wireless connection you should have had to the ship, since you've been aboard recently, isn't working?"

Well he just figured Renji or Shuhei had dumped the authenticated token cache since the last time. It would be trivial to actually go lease a connection, but Urahara had gone on.

"Or what about the fact that young Hanataro had trouble diagnosing your injuries?"

The kid sounded like he'd have trouble mixing drinks, let alone trying to heal anyone. He's not even a med student, let alone a doctor, perfectly reasonable not to expect expert care.

"Ichigo," Kisuke said gravely. "You've burned out your neural link."

This? This was the dramatic bomb Urahara was going to drop on him? "Oh," Ichigo replied with a chuckle. "I thought you were going to say something serious. I'll just get another one injected next time we stop somewhere."

"I'm afraid it isn't that simple," Kisuke replied delicately.

Alarm bells began ringing in Ichigo's head and he turned his cuff-covered eyes to where he was sure Urahara was sitting. "What do you mean?" he asked, his casual nonchalance beginning to dissipate.

"I mean," Kisuke chose his words with care, "That your brain stem is rather saturated with the remnants of four separate neural links. There simply isn't a way to install a new one unless something changes."

"Change how?"

"Still working on that."

"What the hell am I going to do in the mean time? Have you told everyone else?"

"The others know your link is gone, Hanataro knew the moment he tried opening a medical connection, but they _don't_ know that you won't be able to get a new one." He heard Urahara rubbing a finger across his scruffy chin, apparently contemplating something. "If it makes you feel better, based on the degree of molecular degradation your link burned out right about the same time you fell from the parliament building. All the piloting you did planetside was done without your neural link."

Ichigo opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. "That's impossible," Ichigo said finally. The idea was simply too ludicrous to consider, he must have made a mistake in his calculations. "I had all kinds of systems loaded in my link, I even loaded flight controls and flew the ship with it for a minute there. There's no way-"

"You know your neural link sync ratio, prior to all this, right? Pretty high wasn't it?" Kisuke interrupted.

It was 100%, but he didn't like talking about it much. It made people act weird when they heard it.

"I didn't tell you this, but after the first time you flew with Rukia I polled yours and her link usage stats..."

"Yeah, Rukia pulled them up once too. Wanted to know why-"

"Why you had a full bandwidth connection but weren't actually using your link?" Kisuke hazarded.

"Yeah, something like that." She actually wanted to know why they _both_ did.

"I have a couple theories on that," Kisuke said, "But I won't know for sure until we get where we're going." He reached over and unclipped the clasps on the cuff around Ichigo's head. "Let's get that thing off you, it's been long enough."

Ichigo grasped the loosened medical cuff and lifted it gently from his face, his head feeling suddenly so much lighter, and blinked a few times as it came away from his eyes. Squinting in the soft light from overhead, fuzzy images resolved gradually into general shapes, which slowly sharpened into view as he looked carefully around. Seeing a movement in front of him, his vision was suddenly dominated by a blurry, pale blob that, after a few more blinks, became Urahara's looming face. Ichigo started as he focused, drawing back at the intrusion of his personal space, looking at the man with widened eyes.

"Yep," Kisuke said, staring back at Ichigo while wearing his cheshire cat smile. "Looks like they'll be fine," he said, pointing a long finger at each of Ichigo's eyes. "We'll see about this," he poked Ichigo in the forehead, "Later."

True to his word, the display points in the room that would normally hold a floating holo-display were empty. No, not empty, he reasoned. Ichigo just suddenly lacked the hardware necessary to parse and draw them onto his eyeballs. Looking around again, Ichigo was startled to realize how _empty_ the room was, how unearthly _quiet_ it seemed. So used to having a constant feed of information from his neural link, along with the unique level of interactivity it facilitated to the world around him, that being without it made everything seem so blank. So lifeless. So _sterile._ He leaned over and checked his reflection on the glossy pane of an empty panel. His normal, chocolate colored eyes stared back at him, clearly his vision was working just fine... but without a neural link he couldn't help but feel like he still couldn't _see._ "What do I need to do to get a new link working?" Ichigo asked quietly.

"Like I said, I have some theories. You rest up," Kisuke said as he slid off the bed and headed for the door. Placing a hand on the frame, Urahara looked back at him from over his shoulder with mild concern. "You sure, you don't remember anything?"

Ichigo leaned back and fell silent again, dredging up fragments and sensations. He didn't recall activating the emergency ejection system, but he distinctly remembered the sudden release of air from the cabin as the canopy was blasted away, and the utter silence that followed. The sudden pain in his ears was excruciating, and his throat and lungs had felt on fire as they were stripped of air. His restraints had tightened to painful levels as the booster jet beneath the seat launched him away from the ship just as it was splintering to pieces around him, hurling him into the star strewn void as he gasped for air like a fish out of water. And through it all, he had heard that oily, black voice slide through his thoughts one last time.

_Can't go dyin' on me now... I need you alive..._

"No, Urahara. I don't remember anything."

* * *

It was quiet throughout the ship, the faint hum of the engines was the only vibration she could feel through her bare feet. Still, she slid her door shut and stepped cautiously down the dimly lit corridor, careful to remain as quiet as possible.

Rukia had found sleep to be elusive despite her exhaustion at end of such an ordeal. Creeping through the quiet hall of the _Zabi Maru's_ cabin deck she stopped outside one particular cabin and peeked in, finding Ichigo sleeping dreamlessly and sprawled out on the bunk. He had managed to stay awake only a short while longer before the combination of unmedicated pain and accelerated tissue regeneration left him fall-down tired, and they decided to move him someplace more comfortable. She glanced around though she knew she was alone, it was halfway through third watch and essentially the middle of the night. There would be only one other person on the bridge while everyone else was asleep.

She slipped inside the cabin and gently slid the door shut, letting her eyes adjust to the deeper gloom. Hesitating, she wondered for a moment what her true motivations were. Was she doing this just for comfort? Was she testing just how intimate and familiar their relationship had progressed? Was her restlessness while trying to sleep alone, something she thought she preferred, just nerves or was it some subconscious drive telling her not to be alone anymore? That last question hung in her mind, unnerving her almost to the point of paralysis. The stillness in the room was broken as Ichigo rolled over on the bunk. Deciding she was simply overthinking things, she shimmied out of her pants and dropped her shirt on top. Dressed only in her pressure shirt and underwear, she slithered under the cover next to Ichigo and laid her head down. Drowsily noting her presence, he smiled goofily in the starlit darkness and draped a careless arm over her waist, holding her back to his chest and pressing his cheek to the top of her head.

It was so warm and safe there, ensconced in his arms, that she felt herself drifting off to sleep nearly immediately. She had never needed anyone, never wanted anyone, but couldn't deny the peace she felt in his presence and wondered, not for the first time, if maybe she just hadn't known what she'd been missing. She shrugged sleepily. He was safe, that was all that mattered. She'd sort herself out later.

* * *

Sleep drifted away from him as his eyes opened slowly, letting him focus on another room he didn't recognize. Heavy bulkheads for walls and ceiling, tiny window looking out into darkness, slide-away bunk, he must be in one of the small cabins on the _Zabi Maru_. Stretching his sore muscles, his hand slid across the bed and came to rest where she had been. Now beginning to cool, he could remember the feel of her, soft and warm, her head pillowed on his arm as the scent of her hair filled his nose, her small hands holding his arm in place while one leg absently rubbed one of his.

He smiled at the feeling but felt it falter as he remembered that without a neural link, it was like a piece of it was missing. Like he had somehow lost a sense, a facet of his experience felt blind or numb. Or empty, like a hole inside his mind. He stood, leaning near the viewport and looking out into the darkness. He could see the _Red Princess_ cruising a few hundred meters off their wing and the distinctive shape of Ishida's ship a bit further out, all three moving in parallel formation and their bows brightly lit with yellow-orange light. They were headed deeper into the inner orbits, headed straight for the twin suns apparently.

Ichigo sighed and moved about the small cabin collecting his discarded clothing, habitually calling up the command to display the time. He deflated a second later as nothing appeared, and was left wondering how much use he'd be without his neural link.

He couldn't pilot, not the way he had with Rukia, not that they had a ship in the first place. It looked like from now on they were going to have to rely on Renji and Uryu to haul them around the system. Rukia was an accomplished gunner so she, at least, had something to exchange. Without a working neural link it would take him hours to accomplish the simplest piloting tasks, so he really didn't have anything. It was worse than feeling useless.

He felt powerless.

Sitting despondently on the edge of the bunk, he pushed his feet into his boots and scratched at his chin. Urahara had said his link had burned out early, and he had flown the ship without it. He'd also said he had some kinda weird bandwidth and usage anomaly that apparently was responsible, not to mention this dark shadowy thing that had usurped his control for a second. That was all done without a link, maybe he didn't really need one after all, he thought. Swallowing and glancing around the empty room out of habit, he focused his eyes on the comm terminal socket in the wall. Normally he'd just be able to issue a focal connection and let the comm system controls flicker into existence, drawn on the backs of his eyes by his ocular implants and seemingly hovering in midair. Carefully and precisely issuing the biofeedback command, he sent it through his mind, willing the comm system to activate.

Nothing happened.

Rolling his eyes at himself, he knew it was a stupid idea in the first place. He'd need a neural link no matter what Urahara claimed. Pulling a looser shirt on over the skin tight pressure shirt, he wiped the resigned look from his face and made to leave the cabin. At least Rukia was safe, that was all that mattered. He'd sort himself out later.

* * *

Finally feeling somewhat rested, Rukia found herself sitting alone on the bridge and staring at the tactical console controls without really seeing them. Her body was beginning to recover but her mind kept travelling down dark, depressingly familiar avenues. In her dreams she kept replaying the encounter with Byakuya above the curve of Inzuri, leading to a confusion of emotions that warred within her as she awoke. Relief, sorrow, vindication, loss, elation. She sat back in the station chair, unused to such potent emotions and looked down with a frown at her borrowed, ill-fitting clothes. The look on Byakuya's face as she unleashed a lifetime of venom at him, the feeling of seeing Ichigo, beaten and injured but alive, the destruction of her ship... she put her face in her hands, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes.

She asked herself if she was presented the opportunity again, she knew she'd save his life without question, but where did it leave her? Where did it leave them? She couldn't return to her life on Karakura station. Her weapons were gone, her ship was gone, everything of hers was gone. It was horrible to even think but she couldn't stop herself: All in exchange for Ichigo. Was it fair? Was it right? Was this the way it was supposed to be? Sacrifice everything she was for someone else?

Her ship. It was selfish and loathsome, but now that Ichigo's safety had been secured she found she couldn't get the image of her ship splintering apart, eaten from within by chemical fire, out of her mind. If she had owned one thing in this entire solar system, it had been her ship. It had given her a tangible connection to her duty as a soldier, it gave her the freedom to execute that duty to the best of her abilities, and it had enabled her to retain her sense of self-reliance. If there was a place she ever felt truly at home, it was there. Now it was gone and she felt more than homeless.

She felt powerless.

She sighed, realizing she didn't even have the power to keep Ichigo away, whether she wanted to or not. Keeping people at arm's length had become normal for her, but it was Ichigo who had slipped past them and let her know what she'd been missing. Let her know just how tired her arms were. The walls around her emotions had come down, and her vitriolic lashing at Byakuya told her that capacity for grief and loss were still very powerful. But happiness? Did she even know how to be happy anymore? She knew all of this was circular reasoning and ultimately, she trusted Ichigo. Her problem, she realized, was that she was starting to not trust herself.

She was pulled from her directionless musing as Shuhei stepped onto the bridge. She was infinitely grateful that he didn't say something along the line of 'like old times', instead he just stared out the front viewport at the twin spheres of orange light that were growing slowly but steadily closer.

"I've never been this far into the inner orbits," he said quietly, glancing at the short and long range sensor displays and shaking his head. "Look at all that traffic, unreal."

Rukia herself glanced at the display, more than a dozen little dots glowing in the field of black. "It's different here than it is out there. No navy escorts, no defense systems, it's," she paused, searching for a word.

"Safer?" Shuhei guessed, sitting at the other station.

She could see the parallel between her life before and after Ichigo to the differences between the inner and outer orbits and sighed in contemplation. "It isn't safer, but they fool themselves into thinking it is, because nothing usually goes wrong. The safety net is so dense here that it's all they know, all they see, so they don't question it."

"But out there, beyond the Rukongai Belt, there could be days between you and another ship," Shuhei said, nodding in understanding.

"You have to rely on yourself," she said without thinking.

He shot a quizzical look at her, his thin brows narrowing. "You mean 'your crew' right? The people you're with? You can't rely on yourself all the time."

"Y-yeah," Rukia said, turning to look back at her console, "The people you're with." She was with Ichigo. She trusted him, she relied on him, she felt connected to him... So why did that bother her? She was spared from continuing as Renji stepped onto the bridge, followed by an uncomfortable looking Ichigo. The gray of his pressure shirt was visible beneath the edge of his clothing as he adjusted the neck line.

"Heya Rukes, like old times, huh?" Renji said with a grin, sitting down in the captain's chair.

Rukia pursed her lips in silent annoyance at him and his pet names, but did not address it. It would only anger him and they have precious few allies at the moment. Catching Shuhei's eye, Rukia noticed that he, at least, had the decency to look abashed for his friend. Ichigo stopped next to her station, looking down at her with an unreadable expression, making her fingers twitch in his direction in hopes of finding out what troubled him.

"Hey Rukia, you were gone when I woke up," Ichigo said quietly, "You sleep okay?"

"Yes, thank you," she answered, keeping her eyes on his but knowing full well that Renji was listening closely, "Best I've had in a while." It wasn't exactly the truth, but she banked on the innuendo being strong enough to get through even Renji's thick head, hopefully putting him in his place. She caught Ichigo's small smirk at her as he flicked his eyes to the stewing pirate, then further as Urahara stepped onto the bridge behind him.

"Good morning everyone," he said cheerfully. "And how are you all doing?"

"Course is holding steady, Urahara," Renji said, "If that's what you're concerned about."

"Actually, I was hoping you'd let me borrow your shuttle for a little while, I need to head back to the _Red Princess_ to continue my work," he replied, his smile disarming and his tone light.

"Sure, whatever," Renji said dismissively. He turned to look at him as Urahara steepled his fingers, shooting a calculating look Ichigo's way. "Hey, do you mind telling us where we're going anyway?"

"Nope, it would spoil the surprise. Just maintain this heading for another..." he checked the air above him, no doubt calling up a command in his own neural link, "Twenty two hours, at this speed."

"But that's going to put right on top of the suns," he argued back.

"Precisely."

Ichigo took a step back to the captain's chair as Urahara headed off the bridge, the older man clapping him on the shoulder and giving him a supportive smile. At least, he assumed it was supposed to be supportive. Really it made him just look more scheming than usual. Ichigo rolled his shoulder as he looked down to Renji, swallowing his pride and discomfort. "Hey uh, Renji. I know you're still operating on a skeleton crew here, I just wanted to know if there was something I could do."

"Well I don't know," he replied from his captain's chair, not bothering to look his way, "Is there anything you can do?"

"I could operate the nav station," he said, trying to keep the tone civil.

"You sure about that?"

Ichigo glanced at his display panel. "You've got the course loaded but no correction protocols entered, we could end up a couple thousand miles off target by the time we get there. Besides, we're flying in a straight line for the next twenty-odd hours, how hard could it be?"

"How about you tell me? Have a seat there and just be my guest."

Scowling a bit harsher than usual, Ichigo stepped down the bridge to the navigation station and took a seat, keeping his eye on Renji all the while. Breaking eye contact, he looked down to the panels and displays, his fingers stretching out to call up various systems, and froze. Once again, all the panels were blank and lifeless.

"What's the matter, Ichigo?" Renji asked sarcastically, "Having some trouble?"

Rukia had noticed Ichigo's panels had remained blank and was looking curiously between him, the consoles, and Renji. "What's going on?" She didn't like being in the dark and wasn't appreciating Renji antagonizing Ichigo.

"No neural link, no MPU connection, no context layouts," Renji explained. "So no panels," he chuckled at Ichigo's expense, turning to Shuhei expecting to share a laugh only to find him buried in his work. He saw Rukia's dark glower and felt his mood deflate. Pissing off Rukia was high on his list of stupid things to do, it wasn't worth risking just to continue needling the orange-headed dumbass.

So that's why the panels on the ship were all blank, Ichigo realized. Reminding himself that Renji was just jealous and getting back at him for discussing sleeping with his ex, he bit back his reply and worked to keep his face neutral. He caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned to see Rukia stand from her station and step up next to him. She shot a glare at Renji, who shrugged it off but couldn't hide the sting in his eyes, and then leaned down close to Ichigo. Her eyes lost focus for a moment, followed by tiny flicks left and right, before the panels at his station shimmered to life. The soft glow lit up her face and sent her eyes sparkling.

"Standard navigation and course control systems are loaded, I hope my personal layout is okay with you," she said to him, following in an undertone, "As well as the basic system cross-talk functions, let me know if you need anything else." She gave him a half-smile before slipping away from him, back to her station.

Knowing she was only helping, Ichigo couldn't help but feel slightly emasculated as he punched the controls with more force than he strictly needed to. Pulling up the course heading control and attitude adjustment system, he funneled them both into an astrometrics monitor and began the painstaking process of setting individual computations for drift, sheer, and roll, mapped out in six dimensions. The process would have taken time even if he had a neural link to rely on, and he became somewhat thankful that he didn't as the work consumed his attention and the complex calculations soothed his agitation. When he was done with the basics, he went back to refine the calculations, compounding their precision and setting tolerance limits on his variables. Sitting back in his console chair, he was feeling rather confident that he had accomplished something without the use of his link, and glanced over his shoulder to Rukia's station.

Her station was empty, as was Shuhei's. The only person left on the bridge was Renji, sitting in his captain's chair as he drummed his fingers on his crossed leg, eyeing him with a critical severity. Ichigo had the impression that time had passed, but had no way to tell how much without breaking eye contact. There was an awkward pause as the two of them stared at each other, an electric tension in their air between them. Renji broke first as he turned to hold up a display, shifting his gaze to it, then back to him. "You did all this without a neural link?" came his eventual question.

Ichigo remained tense, answering simply, "Yeah."

"I'm impressed, it's no wonder tha-"

"What'd you really want to talk about, Renji?"

The pirate smiled without humor, the angular tattoos across his brow moving as he sharpened a glare at Ichigo. "So, you and Rukia, huh?"

Of course he'd want to talk about that. "Yeah, Rukia and I." He swallowed, pushing away the pang of loss he felt at being unable to sense her emotions, and the shudder at thought of that oily black presence seeping from him to her. He could not allow that to happen, but at least he didn't have to worry about it right away; without a neural link he couldn't process any input, so he shouldn't be able to send any output. He refocused again on Renji as the silence drew out, and he wondered if the pirate was trying to make him uncomfortable or if he was just marshaling his thoughts. It was apparently the latter.

"Listen," Renji began. "I don't exactly know what's going on between you and Rukia," he held up a forestalling hand and turned away, "And I don't want to know.

"My point is, I've known her a hell of a lot longer than you have and I can tell you, for certain, you may think you know how she feels, and you might feel like you know how she thinks, but you'd be wrong." Renji leaned forward in his chair, settling his elbows on his thighs and fixing his stare at Ichigo. "The minute you start to think of her as 'your girl' is the minute you'll lose her. Rukia never has been, and never will be, anybody's."

The words were a warning as much as they were from experience, and Ichigo halted his hot-headed rebuke before it began. "You think I don't know she has her issues?" he asked instead. He heard the faintest echo of a voice rasp itself across the back of his mind. His throat suddenly dry, he managed to eventually say, "We're all dealing with something."

"What I see you dealing with," Renji continued, momentarily distracted by the displays at Ichigo's back as they distorted for second, "Is a goddamn us-against-them mentality, and that _will_ get you both killed out here. She may be the only you give a shit about, and hell it might even be mutual, but don't think for a _second_ that you're the only one around here who gives a shit about her. Sure, she likes to handle things on her own, but that doesn't mean I won't work my ass off to protect her from anything," he paused significantly, "Or anyone."

"For once, Renji Abarai," Ichigo said, mildly surprised at the crafty pirate's perception and matching the his intensity, "We find ourselves in agreement." They held each other's gaze for a moment longer before they each nodded, coming to an unspoken understanding. Glancing around the empty bridge, Ichigo felt confident in being a little more conversational. "So, where is everyone?"

Renji stared at him and sat back in his chair, the tattoos across his forehead shifting up towards his hairline. "They're probably eating dinner," he explained. "You've been working for hours on that shit."

 _Dinner? Lunch more likely._ Ichigo checked the time on his console in surprise, finding his rhythm was off ship-time by about four hours, and heard Renji stand from his chair behind him. His neck sore from being stooped over the console for so long, Ichigo added it to the list of minor aches and pains that hadn't fully healed yet and turned back to see a compact, dark silhouette stepping around Renji from the hall, giving him a friendly but brief greeting before meeting Ichigo's eyes. Renji withdrew from the bridge as Rukia relieved him.

"You two have got the bridge then," he said, retreating into the darkness.

Taking in his appearance, Rukia made her way slowly towards him. His face was slightly drawn from work, but even it weren't she could still see the deeper haunt around his eyes. Those eyes of his, she focused on them, falling into their chocolate depths and breathing a little easier. They had perked up when he saw her, but the light in them that she was used to was muted by an ephemeral grief that he himself hadn't even acknowledged. Yet.

"No water bottles to throw this time?" he asked, fixing a crooked smile on his face.

"I could get one and throw it, if you'd like?" She arched a wry eyebrow, leaning against the console across from him.

"No, no. I doubt I'd be able to catch it this time," he admitted, rubbing his sore ribs.

"I'll keep that in mind next time you overextend yourself."

"C'mon, all I've been doing is sitting at this navigation console for a few hours..."

"Without eating, or talking, or blinking... But that's not overextending yourself," she said dismissively, coming closer. "That's just your normal level of O-C-D." She gave him a snarky smile as he rolled his eyes at her.

She leaned down next to him, her hair falling from behind her ear and sweeping over her cheek. She reached over and flicked her fingers over his consoles, but his eyes remained on her, drinking in the supple lines of her curves, unintentionally accentuated by her pose. This was the closest he'd been to her outside a state of semi-consciousness since their little adventure on Inzuri. The flash of fire and light assaulted his memories, a roaring funnel of destruction reaching out from the mouth of a tunnel to touch the city. It was suddenly, overwhelmingly important to him that somehow he communicate to Rukia how fleeting life was, how precious. Stopping to really think about it, the salient points he wanted to make were 'Rukia', 'important', and 'precious'.

"This is really good work- what is it?" she asked, her blue-violet eyes shifting to his.

"Good job not getting stabbed by that crazy pink-haired girl." He groaned mentally, having never been very good with words. _I'm glad you're okay._

Rukia smiled self-deprecatingly. "Good job on getting off the planet in one piece." She watched a flicker of something vague but painful flash across his face, something she could partially recognize but was intimately familiar with. Rukia tentatively reached forward and ran her fingers through his hair, her short nails grazing his scalp. The sensation that she had come to enjoy, a private thrill she'd never admit to, that tingle and buzz across her body when she touched him, was gone. The only thing she could feel through his skin was a vague, inert weight. It wasn't like a neural safety, it was more like...

Pressure.

Ichigo reached up to her and brushed the hair back over her ear, his own fingers tracing along her neck and over her pulse point. After living for so long with an informational connection to the world around him, an extra sense (in a sense) that told him not what things were but _how things are_ , he knew it would be hard living without it. But until this moment, when he reached out to touch her and felt himself try the biofeedback command to release his neural safety and then felt nothing but her soft skin beneath his fingers, he had never felt more trapped inside his own body. He released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and it came out as a gusty sigh. He'd been hoping for some kind of connection, some kind of communication to let him know he wasn't alone.

"You've never killed anyone before, have you?" she asked quietly, seeing an anguish buried beneath his expressions. She didn't need a feelink to know his guilt. He was reaching for answers and solace as much as he was reaching for her, even if he didn't know it.

Ichigo couldn't hide from her piercing, blue-violet gaze. He had seen death before, it was inescapable aboard a medical ship. But how could he explain the truth when he didn't even understand it himself? How could he deny that it had been him, yet not him, that had released the weapon pods, that had unleashed that torrent of destruction? It was his responsibility no matter how you looked at it.

"Killing," she said said, her voice tight and her eyes distant, "Is a monstrous thing." She cupped his face gently in her hands, "But it doesn't make you a monster."

Ichigo wasn't so sure. "But-"

"Guilt," she said, softly interrupting and speaking from experience, "Does not care about fault, or intention, or circumstance." She placed a kiss on his forehead. "And feeling guilt is what keeps you from being a monster." She kissed him again on the lips, lightly.

The whispered memory of that voice in his head wafted past his ears again. _I need you alive..._ Survival. Kill or be killed. A second of lapsed control and it had done what Ichigo could not. Fault. Intention. Circumstance. She was right, it didn't matter to Ichigo. He was never one to consider every ramification before he acted, but he always tried to act in accordance with his conscience and took responsibility for the outcome, fault or not. He still felt the burden of guilt, but that dark presence that forced his hand? There was no guilt there, only drive, only conscious willful choice to release those weapon pods. Ichigo may not have been a monster, but that black voice locked up within his mind _was_. He closed his eyes and swore to himself that such a thing would never, ever happen again.

He buried his face in her chest as he wrapped his arms around her, gathering her in. Breathing in her scent, he wondered how in all the worlds she could understand him so well. It didn't matter that she didn't know what had happened, exactly. She didn't care. She understood. "How do you that? What happened to loneliness and social maladjustment?" he asked her, a true smile making a rare appearance on his face.

"I'm not totally socially graceless," she said, setting herself down on his lap. "And do what?"

"Know..." he searched for the right words, "Me."

"Ah, well," she said lightly, placing an arm on each of his shoulders. "You're not that hard to figure out, even without a neural link."

"So you're saying you don't need a neural link to communicate non-verbally, to me?" he asked, settling his hands loosely on her hips.

"People were doing it before neural links, I think I've got the basic idea." She could feel his breath against her neck as they moved closer together, the sensation stirring up warm memories and warmer responses.

"So what am I feeling," he breathed as she let her chest mold onto his, their eyes still locked and noses nearly touching, "Right now?"

"Right now? I'd say you feel there is an emptiness around here in desperate need of filling." Her voice was low, sultry and laced with suggestion.

Surprised at her boldness he could only respond a brilliant and witty, "Oh?"

"Yep," she said airily, hopping off his lap and slipping out of reach. "So go get something to eat. That's an order." She sat down in the empty captain's chair with regality of a queen, a haughty jut to her chin only slightly undone by the mischievous glint in her eye.

"Aye aye, my merciless tease of a captain," he formally acknowledged, grinning at her.

"Get going, my stubborn idiot of a pilot," she smiled back.

_You have no idea, do you? Of just how beautiful you are?_

* * *

"Hey, Ichigo," she said softly, nudging his leg with her toe as she ran the dehydrator through her hair, careful not to let it suck out too much moisture. Setting it back in its cradle, she watched the little reservoir empty back into the ship's reclamation system as she ran her fingers through her thick locks, an errant bang drifting across her brow. "It's time to get up, lazy ass."

"Mrmmph."

"Be that as it may, you still need to get up."

He lifted his head from the pillow and turned to face her, blinking to clear his eyes. She was turning the lights up in the small cabin with a flick of her finger through the air, stooping to pick up discarded clothing as she hunted for her other boot. Her pressure shirt was still mostly unzipped, showing off a tantalizingly bare stretch of skin from her throat down her chest, and Ichigo's eyes felt glued to it even as he fixed his most surliest expression on his face. "This is the shit no one tells you when you move out into space." She cast a curious look in his direction, zipping up her shirt as she did. "There's no day-night cycle out here, so everyone ends up on different schedules."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," she teased. "You want more sleep, you shouldn't have stayed up."

"Interesting choice of words." He watched her pause for a fraction of a second as she realized his meaning, her lips parting as her cheeks tinted.

She cleared her throat and fixed a stare at him. "I stand by my position."

"I remember all your positions, none of them involved standing," he said back without hesitation. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, sitting with only the sheet covering him, and scrubbed his face with his hands.

"Keep it up Ichigo," she said, a hint of playful warning in her voice as she traced a finger down his throat and over his bare chest. "And I won't take it lying down," she purred.

He chuckled, rolling his head back and stretching his neck as her fingers continued down his stomach, over the ridges of his abdominals. "What were we talking about?" he asked, reaching towards her waist.

She slipped from his grasp and moved to the door. "You were getting up-"

"Mission accomplished."

"-And into the shower," she finished rolling her eyes at him. "We're supposed to arrive in two hours, now move it. You smell."

"I do?"

"Yes," she said as the door slid open and she stepped into the hall. "You do."

He grumbled at her as she shut the door, tossing the cover off and opening the door to the privy shared between cabins. "Arrive in two hours?" he muttered as he sealed himself inside the shower cylinder, trying to think of something, anything that was this close to the twin suns. "Arrive where?"

Meanwhile, as Rukia walked down the cabin deck corridor, the smile on her face from playfully bantering with Ichigo began to fall away. Stopping to look over her shoulder at the closed door, she wondered for a moment if what they had would last beyond whatever this threat to their lives was. She immediately put such thoughts out of her mind, refusing to question whatever measure of happiness she could wring from it. If she started thinking otherwise, she knew she'd just be paralyzed waiting for the other shoe to drop. Re-imagining him with darker hair and simple spiral tattoos down his arms, she told herself ignore her instincts as they begged her for protection.

As they warned her it wouldn't just be a shoe that would drop this time.

She put the thoughts aside as she stepped up the stairs at the end of the hall, continuing upwards past the landing that led to main engineering and stepping off on the quarterdeck, into the corridor that led towards the bridge. She could hear a couple of indistinct voices that resolved into Renji and Shuhei as she passed the lateral gun banks, the turrets all retracted and hatches sealed.

"I'm telling you, it's crazy getting this close," Shuhei was saying, "They'll cook us alive if we shift more than seven and half degrees."

"Rukia said to go where Urahara said," Renji shrugged. "This is where he said."

Shuhei halted his reply as Rukia stepped into the door frame, his expression carefully neutral but his lips closing into a thin line. "Permission to the bridge?" she asked to Renji who just waved her forward.

The first thing she noticed was that the expected scene out the front facing viewports, the image of the twin suns, hanging huge and swirling with radiant light, was missing. All she could see was empty black. Empty, starless, black. She prided herself on being relatively unshakable, but the featureless swath of nothingness left her speechless. She could feel her eyes roving across it, trying to find some anchor to gauge depth and distance with, but came up empty.

"Yeah, it's weird huh?" Renji said. "Light pollution from the suns reacting with the deflector system. Screws up short range sensors too. We've repositioned the _Zabi Maru_ and the others." He pointed a finger directly upwards.

Rukia looked towards the ceiling and out the opened dorsal viewport, to see the head-on profile of the _Red Princess_ , seemingly aimed straight down at them. It suddenly made sense her. "The _Zabi Maru_ is tipped back on her tail, flying heat-shields first, and the others are in our shadow?"

"Got it in one," Renji replied. "Urahara is supposed to be returning in the shuttle any minute. How's your robot friend? Still crunching your numbers?"

Rukia had to think a moment before responding and had opened her mouth to say something when a heavy footstep reverberated through her body. Looking behind her, she came face to face with a polished goldtone and vaguely leonine hardsuit. "Kon, you still in there?" The suit's self-adjustment system had retracted its volume as much as possible, seeing as it was technically empty aside from Kon's quantum core. The result was an oddly flat but otherwise humanoid proportioned mechanical figure.

"First of all," Kon said from within the suit. "I am not a robot, so you can bite my shiny metal ass. Second of all," he turned to face Rukia directly, "My analysis is complete, I think I've managed to pin down the ship and port of service of the people who framed you."

"That's great Kon!" It was strange to hear such emotional inflection in his voice while none carried over to his helmet-face.

"There was a third thing, but feel free to interrupt with any more comments on how great I am, or handsome, or talented," Kon said, leaning his hardsuit 'body' against the door frame. There was a tapping noise as the end of a cane was rapped against Kon's shoulder.

"Handsome and talented? I believe that's my line," spoke a voice from behind Kon.

"Oh right, third thing," Kon muttered as he stood aside. "Urahara and company have arrived."

"So we have," he said happily, striding onto the bridge without an invitation. Uryu Ishida, looking as crisp and immaculate as ever, coughed politely from the threshold to catch Renji's attention, silently motioning for permission to the bridge. Gaining it, he took a step to the side and allowed Yoruichi to pass him, bowing slightly to her at the waist.

"Such a gentleman," Yoruichi purred as she glided past. "You could teach the boys around here a thing or two."

"I am honored you think so, Princess Shihoin."

She laughed musically. "Not a princess anymore, just like Miss Kuchiki over there."

"Forgive me if I refuse to accept the edicts of the Central Four-and-Six, their jurisdiction over the outer orbits is nothing but a thinly veiled military occupation. The nobility shall always remain the nobility to those who appreciate their past generosity."

"Well then," she said, regarding him, "The honor is mine."

Rukia watched him blush slightly at her words before standing back up, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose. He snapped her a courteous, formal bow as well and then hoisted a bulky looking bag onto his shoulder. Finally moving to stand at the astrometrics station, she noticed Ichigo walk from the darkness behind him, his hair still wet from the shower. He met her eyes and gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement before Urahara spoke up.

"Ah, we're all here, excellent." He hooked his cane over his wrist and clasped his hands together. "You're probably wondering what we're doing here so close to the sun's corona, well now is the time for me to tell you... well, show you. Ichigo, if you could take the nav station and yaw us thirty eight degrees to port, careful to keep our pitch and roll unaffected? Wouldn't want expose an unshielded area of the ship and roast us alive."

With an exasperated nod from Renji, getting tired of having others issue orders on his ship, Ichigo slipped into the station chair and smoothly pivoted the ship to port. Anyone looking upwards would have seen the _Red Princess_ seem to roll above them, but everyone's eyes were out the front viewport as a blurry shape swung into view.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Urahara said, all traces of joking and humor evaporating from his voice, "I give you the colonial navy's dirty little secret." Outside the front viewport, half-obscured by glaring light pollution, was a small planetesimal, brown against the black of space and lit harshly by the orange light of the suns. "A tiny little place tucked in too close for anyone to safely visit ninety percent of the time. It has a highly elliptical orbit around the suns, only coming out far enough to approach once a circuit, which is how it earned it's name.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is our destination. Pendulum."

* * *

"Urahara..." Ichigo said as another jolt of turbulence shuddered through the small shuttle, rattling his teeth together, "What are we doing here? Kon figured out the ship, we need to be tracking it down." Ichigo flicked his eyes down to the consoles around him, working overtime as he adjusted their course manually and kept an eye on the physical readouts across the boards. Before them, out the front viewport of the small shuttle was the black sphere of Pendulum lit all around by the fiery glow of the twin suns. Approaching the planetesimal with a flight path that left the suns permanently eclipsed was the only safe way to land the shuttle, but Ichigo was finding it easier said than done. The boiling stream of solar wind that lashed against the surface carried away denser material that hammered against their deflector systems.

The extra mass of six people in a shuttle only designed for three wasn't helping either.

"Kon figuring out the ship is precisely _why_ we're here, Ichigo!" Urahara said happily, his smiling face never wavering during the bouncing and juddering as they neared the surface.

"That doesn't explain anything," Rukia pointed out, sitting in the copilot seat and working to compensate as the limited gravity well began to affect their trajectory.

"You'll thank me later," Kisuke said, "Wouldn't you agree, Yoruichi?"

"We'll see," she said from her place across both of the laps of Renji and Uryu, who were both red-faced from embarrassment. They hit another patch of turbulence, jostling her around and forcing them to hold her tighter to keep her from falling.

"Comfortable, my dear?" Kisuke asked.

She shot him a sizzling grin. "Quite."

"Sit a pretty girl on your lap..." Rukia muttered out the corner of her mouth.

Ichigo did his best to hide his laugh at their predicament. It really wasn't fair, the leggy, violet haired woman was being intentionally provocative and Uryu looked like was he was going to have a stroke. Better take his mind off it. "Ishida," he called back, "You just left your ship back there, empty?"

"Of course not, Kurosaki," he replied, after carefully clearing his throat. "It is in quite capable hands, now please concentrate on landing."

"Wait a sec," Ichigo said, making sure he had heard correctly, "You have a crew? I thought you were doing the whole 'solo mission' thing?"

"Focus on flying, Kurosaki," Uryu admonished, the blush on his face beginning to seep down his neck.

Urahara gave instructions to Rukia for them to alter their flight path while Ichigo angled their approach down on the night side of the planetesimal. As they dropped down lower the turbulence began to abate but huge, shadowy structures began to appear across the ground below them. Checking their final destination, Ichigo took the time to look closer out the viewport, squinting through the darkness and trying to identify what was out there. "Hey, you said this the navy's dirty little secret. What's out there?"

"Pendulum is a dumping ground," Kisuke answered. "Right there, that's the place," he said, pointing.

"A dump? You took us to a landfill, what in the worlds for?" Rukia asked, her fingers dancing through the air as she adjusted engine levels and I-Grav emitter outputs.

The shuttle went cruising low to the surface, kicking up dust in their wake as they shot past jagged outcroppings and over splintered crevices. Ahead of them, the suns were creeping up the horizon and sending fingers of searing light stretching out into the black above them.

"Better hurry, don't want to get caught in that," Kisuke suggested as the burning brightness of the suns touched the very tips of the tall rock peaks in the distance, flash-heating the surface and setting the entire horizon wavering, limned with orange light.

Set down in a shallow canyon was a rectangle of deeper darkness, too squared off and uniform to be natural. Dropping down to its level and easing back on the throttle, Ichigo, Rukia and Urahara watched through the front viewport as a pair of huge landing lights blazed into incandescence on either side, throwing the massive open hangar door into sharp relief. The searing light was edging its way down the far wall of the canyon just as Ichigo and Rukia slipped the small shuttle through the opening and into the cavernous space beyond.

"Whew," Urahara said as he and the others looked out the side viewports towards the opening. In scant moments the ground outside was bathed in oppressive orange light, baking the dusty dirt and scorching the rock faces beyond. They saw movement in the shadows as the shuttle settled down on its landing struts, a pair of small figures in soft suits activating the hangar door controls and sealing up the massive opening.

The door closed with a silent finality, snuffing out the orange light of the suns and plunging them all into near total darkness. The soft glow from the cockpit console screens as their only illumination, Ichigo looked over from Rukia towards Urahara, who had a vague, almost apologetic look on his face.

"No turning back now, huh Ichigo?" he asked quietly.

The status light outside the ship turned from yellow to green and Kisuke turned towards the hatch before Ichigo could formulate a response. Instead, he turned back to an equally puzzled Rukia who only shrugged in response. Following everyone else out of the crowded shuttle, they could hear Kisuke talking as they jumped down from the opening. The ground beneath their boots was smooth durocrete and Urahara's voice carried into the emptiness, giving the impression of a vast and empty space beyond the limited distance they could see.

"-carrier wave strength is doubling every hour," Jinta said, removing his helmet and tucking it beneath his arm.

"The signal origin has been confirmed, too," squeaked Ururu, standing next to him.

"He's finally done it, even without the last artifact," Kisuke said pensively. "Those poor bastards."

"How did you know it would come to this?" Jinta asked, trying to stifle his unease.

"Easy," Yoruichi supplied, moving to stand at his side, "He asked himself what the worst possible outcome could be, and then moved to prepare for it."

"Urahara." Ichigo's voice rang out low and even in the empty, dark hangar. He took a step towards him, Rukia, Renji and Uryu flanking him. Everyone could feel the tension in the air, the presence of some unspoken threat only Urahara and the others knew of. Ichigo was tired of the cloak and dagger games they were playing, it was time for some answers. "I think it's time you told us what the hell we're really doing here."

Meeting Ichigo's eye, Urahara studied the younger man for a moment, he himself flanked by Jinta, Ururu and Yoruichi. "I think you're right," he admitted finally, "If you would all please follow me." It wasn't a question so much as a command, Kisuke turning on his heel and snapping his cane up into his hand. With the press of a button on it, a light flared on overhead, pooling around them, then another, and another, leading the way into the deeper darkness.

"Since their discovery, it was evident that the artifacts attracted the lifeform now known today as Hollows. In order to protect themselves and to eliminate this threat, the covert operations branch of the Colonial Navy was created, the G-13." Urahara led them further into the gloom, past dark hulking shapes semi-shrouded just beyond their vision. Their footfalls were hushed and group drew together unconsciously.

"What wasn't clear at the time was _why_ they so aggressively sought them," Urahara continued. "And I was convinced the answer could be found if the process of their bio-mechanization could be genetically reverse engineered. Of course, my research was veering outside the lines of what was sanctioned by the G-13, which led to my subsequent termination and blackballing. At the time I thought I was on the verge of a breakthrough, looking back on it I can safely say it was nothing of the sort.

"Rather, it was more of a..." he turned to them, searching for a word. "Revelation."

Turning back on his heel, he continued to lead them through the enormous hangar, the darkness around them almost tangible. "Cut off from my resources and documentation, I continued to work with the G-13 in what capacity I could, managing a support facility for one of their more capable interceptor operatives."

"So you were just using me?" Rukia snapped.

Urahara sighed and slumped his shoulders, giving Ichigo the impression he had more to admit. In fact, it seemed like Urahara was feeling guilty for far more.

"Through you, yes Rukia, I could maintain access to a measure of the source of my research. What I had found originally was that large portions of their genetic structure showed signs of significant modification, and one of the things I have pieced together since is that the spaceborne Hollows you've encountered prior to all this were designed to retrieve those artifacts."

"But, why?" Uryu asked, walking along with that bulky pack over his shoulder.

"Why, is precisely the right question, and the answer lies in 'who'... Or perhaps 'where'," Urahara said cryptically. "Remember that Hollows are not, from what we can tell, a new phenomenon." He halted and faced them, putting as much gravity into his next words that he could. "And neither are they a natural one. There is no evolutionary path that could possibly lead to this type of bio-mechanical lifeform."

"So? Who cares how they got here?" Renji said, growing bored with this conversation.

"How they got here is what you should be caring about, Mister Abarai," Kisuke said darkly. "They are older than the colonization of the outer orbits, older than the Central Four-and-Six, older than our recorded history."

"And yet, not naturally occurring," Rukia breathed, beginning to understand. The ramifications of what Urahara had intimated were becoming clear on their faces.

"Now do you care, Mister Abarai? Hollows didn't _start_ here, they _came_ here across the gulf of interstellar space, something we cannot even hope to accomplish even with our level of technology," Urahara explained, "And the energy to mass ratio required for such a thing indicates a single, immensely powerful ship. A mothership." He took the time to gauge their reactions before continuing, "And unless I'm very much mistaken, that mothership is missing four key components."

"It's out there, beyond the Rim, isn't it?" Ichigo asked, "Hidden by rock and ice, the darkness deeper than black that the miners talk about."

Urahara nodded grimly, folding his hands over the top of his cane. "Time has taken it's toll on the minds of those Hollows, but even as they descended into savagery they retained their prime directive, written into the very code of their genetic structure: recover the artifacts, return them to the mothership."

Rukia, her arms crossed tightly and her eyebrows set at an angle of severe contemplation, stared at Urahara. "If you could figure this out from the beat up hangar on Karakura station, then the G-13 should have as well, a long time ago. So why have I never heard of this before?"

"A couple of reasons," he replied with a trace of his good humor. "Primarily, I believe my original data and results have been appropriated by someone else and misrepresented to the Captain-Commander."

"Why would someone do that?" she asked, still skeptical.

"Why do you think? Imagine the level of technology in that mothership, capable of crossing the space between solar systems, the ability to perform recombinant genetic manipulation on the level we can't even fathom. Seem like good reasons to me."

"But it's beyond the Rim," Rukia argued. "There's no way to get to it. We don't have the shielding to travel beyond the heliopause."

"Precisely," Urahara said brightly. "So what do you do if you can't go get something?"

"You get it to come to you," Uryu said, speaking up for the first time. "That's what their goal was when they collected the artifacts? Luring their mothership into the system?"

"But they don't have them all, we have one of the artifacts," Ichigo pointed out.

"It ended up not mattering," Urahara said. "It appears that whoever responsible was able to successfully synthesize the one we have. They have brought all the artifacts together and are letting the carrier wave amplify, pulling Hollows all across the system out of hiding and driving them mad. Furthermore," he looked at each of them in turn, "We are reading a gravitimetric instability from beyond the Rim, moving towards the system. Current calculations place whatever is causing it to pass the seventeenth orbit in just under forty eight hours."

"A ship like that in the hands of the person who orchestrated these thefts, killed all those people, framed you, and is willing to take this risk? If successful, they would be unstoppable," Uryu frowned.

"I have the feeling that these people would not act if they weren't sure of the outcome," Rukia said. "This is suddenly a lot bigger than just the two of us getting framed." She glanced over to Ichigo to see him look her way. In unison, they nodded once to each other. His lips had set themselves in a firm line and, as she watched, he drew up straighter, squaring off his shoulders as his hands tightened into fists at his sides.

Ichigo, his face hardened with grim conviction, looked from Rukia's determined stance back up to Urahara. "How do we stop them?"

Kisuke Urahara, the light from above shadowing his eyes even more than usual, smiled approvingly at them, raised his cane in his hand and hovered his finger over a single tiny button. "With this." He pressed the button and the cavernous hangar was filled with the echoes of breakers being thrown. Sparks cascaded down behind him as the floodlights above hummed to life, illuminating an enormous, angular shape. Tamped down low on its landing struts like a crouched predator was a ship unlike any of them had ever seen. Its profile was minimalistic but fierce, the nose tapering severely and every line along its incredibly long, narrow fuselage was swept back from that single point. Molding around a trio of huge engines, the rear cowling flowed into the suggestion of a wing and tail on either side, both angled like that of a falcon's mid-dive. Nearly seamless, the whole of it was a color so black that it seemed to shimmer at the edges, glints of violet and red that played on eye until you looked directly, and then vanished.

"This," Urahara held out a hand to it, "Is the _XSSF Sword of Fate._ "

"It's big," Renji muttered, eyeing it from stem to stern. Three times the length of Rukia's old ship, it was nearly as long as the _Zabi Maru,_ though styled much differently.

"It's black," Uryu appended. He quirked an eyebrow at the man, waiting for an explanation. Ship's were lightly colored for a reason: to reflect rather than absorb. There had to be a good reason why this ship was as black as obsidian.

"It's mean looking," Rukia concluded. This was no covert operations spacecraft, everything about it was death and speed. Where her ship had been gracefully designed with an elegant, curvilinear silhouette that concealed her true nature, everything extraneous had been omitted from this ship in favor of raw, naked combat capability.

Kisuke nodded at their assessments. "The _Sword of Fate_ is an experimental space superiority fighter developed under Operation Shattered Shaft, back when the military thought rebellion and war with the Free Spacer nation was unavoidable. They wanted something that could cover the distances around the outer orbits and not require the use of a service bay or dry dock for extended periods of time, as well as employ an unconventional defensive system designed to defeat energy based weapons fire."

"Like Hollow energy weapons?" Rukia asked, her eyes still scanning over the long, lean ship.

"It was originally designed to defeat the Free Spacer Militia energy weapons." Walking closer to the side of the ship, Urahara stared deep into the black fuselage. "Energy weapons are, at their most basic level, are just high-powered streams of photons. The entire ship is sleeved in a carbon nano-weave fabric, which wicks up those photons and distributes them across the skin of the ship." He ran a finger across the smooth black surface. "Instead of using ablative armor that reflects energy by boiling away, this ship sucks it down and stores it in a massive heatsink, submerged in a tank of sodium chloride solution."

"You're saying this craft was purposefully designed to wage war against the outer orbits?" Uryu asked, his expression darkening.

"Yep," Urahara agreed, "But it was never put into service. After the Free Spacer economy collapsed the project was terminated and all the prototypes were abandoned here." He motioned at the dark shapes around them, each of them somewhat recognizable but all in varying states of disassembly. "By the way, excellent job reconstructing this one, Tessai."

"No sweat boss, the surface has been recalibrated for Hollow energy weapon signatures and modified as per your instructions," the man replied, walking out from behind one of the landing struts and wiping his hands on a towel.

"You?" Ichigo asked. "You've been working here the whole time?"

"Of course," Tessai replied, light glinting off the thin visor across his eyes, "Where do you think I've been?"

"So what'll it be, Ichigo, Rukia? You two are in need of a ship, I'm offering you one," Kisuke said, lobbing a small object towards Ichigo. Tumbling end over end, it glinted in the harsh light before Ichigo snatched it out of the air. "It's going to need a new designation."

Ichigo tightened his hand around what Urahara had thrown to him, his eyes tracking from the black spacecraft before to the woman at his side. As pale as the whitest moon, as cold as fallen snow, her face was set as she took in the magnitude of the shipthat had just been handed to them. She met his eyes and he watched them soften slightly, and realized how she knew what it was like to wield a weapon, to unleash it without hesitation. What it felt like, to kill.

Even the whitest moon had its dark side.

He turned back to the ship, clutching the smooth cylinder in his hand. Like a tangible representation of their respective dark sides, the huge black ship silently crouched over its landing struts, waiting for the two of them. Waiting to be weilded like the weapon it was. A new designation, but his thoughts kept returning to the image of the moon. Half shrouded, shining in the dark, the curve of it slicing through the heavens. Wickedly sharp, uncompromisingly lethal, the razored edge of the crescent moon. " _Zangetsu._ "


	25. Mad World

Silence.

There is a horrible sensation to it, a kind of pressure against the ears, against the mind, and it is unlike anything else. Silence can ring, reverberating through the body. Silence can hush, and snuff out the sounds of life. Silence can forebode, quickening the pace of the heart. Silence can smother, and suffocate with claustrophobic intimacy. It reveals nothing, contains nothing, transmits nothing, and yet produces such stark, powerful effects. Its absence of quantity is its most unsettling quality.

The transition to awareness was instant but not disorienting, like waking from a dreamless sleep. Ichigo found himself calmly staring at the ceiling of his cabin aboard the _Masaki_ , reclined on his bunk with an arm beneath his head and his feet propped up on the railing. It was comfortable, familiar, and yet there was something wrong with it, indefinable and pervasive.

Rolling from the bunk, what struck him first was the quiet. He couldn't hear his father or sisters. Even the thrum from the engines and power plant was missing. All that existed was vacant emptiness in the halls and corridors of the large medical ship. Looking through the open door, everything beyond was murky dimness, the running lights had been turned off and the air scrubbers disabled. Motes of dust were dancing in the starlight seeping in from the viewports, illuminating the ship in a cool, blue-gray light.

His footfalls and the slight rustle of his clothing were distractingly loud as he crossed the room and peered out into the dim corridors. The silence was as tranquil as it was eerie, and Ichigo found himself unnerved, moving more cautiously. His hand against the door frame, he paused, looking at it. Solid, he thought, but there was a un-reality to it, as if it simultaneously both was, and was _not_. Checking the rooms as he stepped past, his trepidation mounted as he found each one empty, not just of people but of life. The ship was undoubtedly the _Masaki_ , every item and furnishing in its place, but it had that intangible absence of vitality, like an abandoned building or derelict spacecraft.

Shafts of starlight sliced across his path as he rounded the end of the cabin deck and made his way towards their central living quarters. Creeping from the enclosed corridors and into the open living area, he peered warily into the murky shadows, looking for some kind of clue or explanation. A flicker of light caught his attention, coming from the media center as it reached out to pierce the dim stillness. Rounding the divider and halting, he found a holo-vid silently playing against the far wall, but the room was as empty as the rest of the ship.

His brows creasing in confusion, Ichigo stepped down the row and took a seat on the first comfortable couch, sinking down low and crossing his arms in contemplation. A twinge from the back of his neck broke his reverie and as he reached to massage it, he felt his pulse quicken. As sure as he had been that the ship was empty, he now knew he was suddenly not alone. Ever so slowly, Ichigo eased his head to the side to look over his shoulder.

Where there had previously been nothing, there was now a _thing_.

Across the aisle from him and sitting on another couch, it defied precise description, somehow sharply defined yet indistinct from the darkness that surrounded it. Shaped like a man, it sat so eerily still he knew it couldn't be human. Peripherally, he was aware that it wore some type of softsuit, the dark material blending into the gloom, but it was the flight helmet and mask covering its face that commanded his attention. That mask. Ichigo's breath caught in his throat as he froze, feeling it impossible to look away from.

Like a remnant of some childhood nightmare, when fear was primal and nameless and paralyzing, that mask took the all the alien unnaturalness that permeated the ship and gave it form, made it real. Just as the figure bore only the most superficial of resemblances to that of a human, so too did that mask to that of a face.

Wide-eyed, Ichigo only stared at it, mentally willing it to do something, anything. Move… move… _move…_

The thing was facing him. It didn't turn its head, it didn't move to look at him. One moment it was looking at the holo-vid, and then just as plainly, it wasn't, sitting as if it had been facing him the entire time. The glassy eyes of the mask stared back at him with a curious, depthless intensity.

Recognition.

Just as he had known the ship was empty, and then just as he had known he was not alone, he knew. On some instinctual, timeless level, Ichigo knew this thing. Facing it, in all its sinister stillness, Ichigo narrowed his eyes at it even as his heart hammered in his chest and his hands clenched themselves into trembling fists.

"Why are you wearing that stupid softsuit?" he asked, doing his best to fix his scowl into an unimpressed slant.

" _WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT STUPID MAN SUIT?"_

The black oily rasp that had whispered through his mind before now rolled and echoed through the empty ship, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Ichigo bolted from the seat and stumbled towards the wall, keeping his eye on the motionless thing all the while.

He collided heavily with the firm solidity of the bulkhead wall and a spark of pain lanced into his brain from the back of his neck. Breathing hard, he reached up to touch the tender spot and felt a slippery wetness against his skin. Pulling them away, he saw his fingertips stained with red. "I'm bleeding…" he muttered, snapping his eyes back to the dark figure.

It was standing across the room from him.

Feeling bolder with the reassuring presence of the wall behind him, a tangible realness in an unreal situation, Ichigo fisted his hands at his sides and drew himself up, facing the dark thing with as much bravado as he could muster. "Where am I?" he demanded.

The thing remained silent, staring at Ichigo with the glassy, black eyes of its mask.

"What are you?" Ichigo asked, his scowl turning to a searing glower. Wherever he was, it was clear this thing was responsible.

If it was possible for an inhumanly motionless entity to look critical and impatient, as if frustrated by Ichigo's pedantic line of questioning, all without moving at all, the thing somehow managed it.

"Take off that mask," Ichigo finally snapped, for no better reason than to be argumentative.

" _YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND."_

It had crossed the room, standing utterly motionless barely a foot from him. His mind blanked at its sudden, complete proximity. Fighting that primitive, instinctual sensation of being trapped, he held his ground and defiantly stared back at the black, soulless eyes of its mask. It finally moved, if you could call it that. Like single frames of a video playing at odd, inconsistent intervals, Ichigo watched it turn half away from him, its arms reaching up to remove the mask and helmet.

"Impossible," he breathed, the blood chilling in his veins as the helmet came away. The thing wore horrid, nightmare version of his face. Thin, pale hair hung lank from its head, brittle and unkempt. Its papery skin held an unhealthy pallor as blue veins spread like spider webs across its face. Cracked, dry lips drawn back to reveal too-sharp teeth, it swiveled its head back towards him with that same jerked, stop-motion movement. Ichigo felt bile rise in his throat as it turned a single baleful, pure black and vacantly soulless eye upon him.

Its other eye was missing.

From the empty socket oozed a black, ichorous blood, sliding greasily down its face and shining like pitch. With an empty kind of madness it stared at him, heedless of the grievous wound.

"You get the fuck away from me," Ichigo uttered.

" _YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND."_

"I understand that you're some kinda fucked up weirdo," he said, his bravado rising. "So back the hell off."

It remained immobile in front of him, staring at him, unmoved by Ichigo's harsh tone. Then, for a fraction of a second, it stopped staring at him. And stared _into_ him.

Depthless fury, inconsolable rage, a vast and timeless insanity contorted its face, its very _being_ for the briefest of moments.

" _YOU. DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND."_

It was staring at him again, no visible expression on its face.

Ichigo felt a heaving sensation in his stomach as a new level of shooting pain blossomed up from the back of his neck. Nearly falling to his knees, he stumbled and found the reassuring presence of the wall behind him was gone, that he was now standing in the middle of the media room. The thing stood impassively at his side, the abhorrent, skull like mask hanging limply from its thin fingers. Another shot of pain forced his head back and when his eyes were able to focus again, they settled on the holo-vid screen.

" _UNDERSTAND."_

The screen resolved into the image of a smooth metal cylinder in the palm of his hand.

Like he was suffocating, Ichigo gasped, "I don't-"

* * *

"-get it," Ichigo said, his brows quirked in confusion. He stared down at the cylinder Urahara had tossed him, feeling the looks from the others flanking him, Rukia, Renji, and Uryu glancing over his shoulder. He raised his head back up to Urahara, seeing Yoruichi, Jinta and Urura at his sides and the great shape of the _Zangetsu_ behind him. "What is it?"

"The key," Kisuke replied with a chuckle after thinking a moment. "It's all I can do, hand you the key. It's up to you if you want to open the door."

Ichigo grasped the metal cylinder and slid it apart, looking down to see the simple shape of a neural link injection tube, capped with a short needle. His initial moment of happiness dissipated, though, the moment he saw the color of the liquid inside the chamber. Rather than the crystal clear suspension fluid he knew from his last links, this was a dull, murky turquoise.

"Is that-"

"You can't be seri-"

"Some kind of sick jo-"

The voices around him were emphatic and cacophonous, echoing through the expansive underground hangar. Ichigo simply stared at the injection tube, thinking. A neural link made from the liquid of the artifact, made from Hollow brain fluid. Could something like that even work, and if it did, what could be the possible side effects? Side effects…

Rukia looked up, her initial shock crystallizing into suspicion as her gaze settled upon Kisuke Urahara. Suspicion boiled down to dark accusation as she moved away from Ichigo and the others, her certainty mounting with each step. "You."

Urahara's eyebrows rose beneath his ash blonde hair as he splayed his fingers against his chest, the picture of mystified innocence. The eyebrows of those around him rose as well when Rukia fisted her hand into the front of Kisuke's shirt and brought his face down to her level.

"You just can't help yourself, it's one thing to satisfy your curiosity for recombinant bio-modification and Hollow genetics, however immoral, unethical and illegal your actions may be, but you had to go one step further. You _combined_ them, and then handed off the result to someone you know can't refuse. This is just another experiment to you," she said, her words turning to an acidic snarl, "And Ichigo is just another test subject."

"Rukia," Urahara said, somewhat surprised at her vehemence. "I don't think I've ever seen this side of you. It's nice to see you coming out of your shell, do we have Ichigo to thank for that?"

"I'm getting more in touch with my emotions," Rukia said through clenched teeth, the augmented muscles in her arms tightening her hold on his shirt. "Guess which one I'm focusing on right now?"

"Now now, let's not be hasty," Urahara cautioned. "To be fair, the link I've created for Ichigo isn't an experiment, that phase is over. This would be the finished product."

"What do you mean?" Rukia's ire deflated as the ramifications of what he said became clear.

"I mean," Kisuke said gently, easing Rukia's hands away from him and clasping them in his own. "I've dealt with this same situation before from the other side, trying to remove a Hollow bio-contamination instead of… install one."

"You were trying to cure them?" Rukia asked, remembering the experience on the comm relay station. "Did you have any success?"

"I made… progress," Urahara admitted, a forlorn sadness drawing down his expression. "You know the government's stance on human augmentation, there's the legal kind, bionic prosthesis and nano-scale implants," he patted her arms to make his point, "And the new, illegal kind where you start tinkering with DNA using hand-crafted viruses. Hollow bio-contamination kinda blurs the line there, and we were making real advances until the lab we had set up was attacked. Only two managed to escape."

"Who-"

"I told them if there was an emergency to seek you out, that you'd help if you could," Urahara told her.

The image of a disheveled blond man and woman, their faces drawn from illness and exhaustion, pointing at them through a display screen and soundlessly saying their names, swam to the front of Rukia's mind. "The crew of the infected ore ship," she realized, the ones that had sealed themselves inside their own shuttle against a horde of other Hollow-contaminated humans. The ones who had something wrong with their eyes.

"Yes," Urahara nodded.

"Where are they now?"

Ichigo spoke up for the first time. "They're being treated by Doctor Aizen. I remember seeing them on the parliament display screens when I was there with Byakuya."

Urahara said nothing, but folded his arms over his cane and looked pensively at a spot on the floor.

"So you took what you learned while trying to cure these people, and used it to create the very thing that infected them in the first place, and you gave it to Ichigo?" Rukia said, turning back to Kisuke.

"No," Urahara said, still staring at the floor. "Not the same. Similar in that they are both genetic bio-modifications of Hollow origin, no I'm not going to lie to you and tell you different, but those people had been exposed to something artificial. Something clumsily constructed and then constantly, inelegantly tested and refined, instead of this," he indicated the syringe Ichigo held in his hand. "Assembled directly from the source and keyed to your specific genome, what I have made is the first, and only, of its kind."

"What is it going to do to me?" he asked.

"It'll let you decode four new proteins, you'll hardly notice a thing," Kisuke replied easily.

Alarm flashed back over Rukia's face as she turned to him. "You're not seriously considering using it, are you?"

"Do you really see much of a choice here?" he asked, "We need to fight, so we need to fly, so I need a link. Any link."

"But it's made from a _Hollow_ ," she emphasized. "They're the enemy."

"You're right." He hardened his gaze at her. "And they're going to overrun the system unless we do something. Everyone is in danger, and I'm willing to do what I need to, to stop it from happening." He held up the syringe. "Even if that means making the hard choice, even if that means doing what no one else can."

"You don't know what it will do to you," she said, stepping closer to him. "It's going to change your DNA. You won't be you anymore, you won't even be human."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"If the M-P-C finds out, they'll-"

"I know what the Ministry of Population Control will do."

Rukia couldn't hide the stricken look from crossing her face. The memory of the MPC patrol crawlers cruising across Junrinan Two, the awful sound of their engines whining as they chewed through the mud, the searchlights swiveling around, piercing the darkness and rain, all came rushing back. At the time the Outer Orbits had been a mix of military occupied refugee camp and ruined, empty metropolis, and the two of them had just been girls, alone but for each other. They had seen what had been done to the other orphans they'd caught, had heard that their crawlers were fitted with a med bay that only performed one procedure.

There was a saying going around the Ministry of Population Control at the time, that 'If they couldn't do something about the Free Spacers directly, at least they were making sure there weren't going to be any more of them.'

She shuddered, glancing between his face and the syringe he held in his hand. He didn't understand, he couldn't. The risk he was willing to take on behalf of the entire system, what he was willing to endure, to sacrifice, it was too big to understand. And yet…

And yet, he was willing to try.

So she would try too.

"Alright," she relented, quietly. Looking up to Ichigo's eyes, she saw them set with grim determination, his customary scowl edged with steel. "Are you sure?" she had to ask.

Ichigo nodded, "But are you?" She gave him a blank look as he held out the syringe to her, not taking it. "The _Zabi Maru_ is the only ship we have with a proper med bay, we don't have time to go all the way back there," he said by way of explanation.

Rukia understood immediately and her mood darkened with incredulity. "Ichigo, it is one thing to agree with your decision to use that link," she sputtered, her eyes widening, "But it's something else altogether to ask me to-"

"You're the only who can, your muscle control augmentations give you the most precise motor control here," Ichigo argued, still holding the syringe out to her. "Without the surgical arm in the med bay, only you will be able to thread the needle into the right spot."

His earlier words rang in her ears. Making the hard choice, doing what no one else can. Sighing, Rukia glared at Kisuke as she gingerly took the syringe from Ichigo, betting he had this part planned out too. Closing her eyes and trying to keep the defeat out of her voice, she drew in a deep, steadying breath, and once again built her walls around herself. So often she had walled off her emotions it had become second nature, sealing them away to let her focus on performing her duty, to follow her orders, to be a soldier. But not this time. Brick by brick, she sealed up the soldier in her, walling it off, snuffing out its accusations and protests. She silently told it that it was not her duty, it was against her orders, it went against everything she knew as a soldier… But it was the hard choice. It was the thing no one else could do. She uncapped the needle at the tip of the syringe and quietly said, "Turn around."

Ichigo did as she said and knelt, lacing his fingers together and bowing his head. A piece of fuselage from one of the other ships lay in front of him, and he could see his blurry reflection in the planes of the metal. He felt more than heard her step up beside him, and the voices in the underground hangar quieted.

"You're… you're going to feel a slight pinch," Rukia said, trying to sound as clinical as possible. She focused on the back of his neck, opening her targeting system and linking it up her muscle control augmentation, relaxing her biological nervous system and letting the synthetic one take over. She could see, modeled with glowing detail and overlaying her vision, the precise spot at the base of his brain she needed to hit, along with the angle of attack she required and depth of penetration to target.

Ichigo remained still, staring down at the blurry image of his reflection. Without a local anesthetic he didn't know what exactly to expect, but he was reasonably certain getting a needle at the base of his brain wasn't going to feel good.

Rukia apparently had the same notion. "Renji, Uryu, could you please brace Ichigo? Just hold his shoulders, he needs to remain still." The two of them somewhat uneasily approached, sharing Rukia's reservations, but obediently held Ichigo securely.

"On three, okay Ichigo?" Rukia cautioned, setting the needle against the skin of his neck.

Ichigo felt his gut clench uncomfortably as the needle came to rest against his exposed skin. An odd sensation welled inside him as he focused his attention away from flinching and onto his reflection, watching it become clearer and clearer.

"One… Two-" and Rukia breathed in, sliding the needle beneath skin and tissue until it came to a stop in the hollow of his fourth vertebra. Before he had a chance to brace himself, when he was still surprised and relaxed, she depressed the stud and the inner thread-needle slipped out and slid easily up his spinal column, past Ichigo's skull and came to rest at the base of his brain.

Rukia, Renji and Uryu all had a clear view of the teal liquid inside the chamber as the injector released its lock, and all three were shocked as it raced out of the tube and down the thread-needle.

Almost like it was… eager.

Rukia steadily removed the spent injector just as Ichigo shuddered and pitched forward in Renji and Uryu's arms. "Ichigo? Can you hear me?"

He felt himself slurring his words as he tried to talk, his shadowy reflection the only thing sharpening as everything else became more and more fuzzy. "Guyzzzz… 'ah thinnnk…"

* * *

"-something's wrong." Ichigo blinked, pushing himself up and standing straighter. The cool blue lighting throughout the rest of the _Masaki_ was dimmer here, and he realized that he was standing, for some inexplicable reason, in the ship's main privy. A large mirror ran the length of the wall above the sink and as Ichigo returned his attention to it, he noticed it wasn't matching his movements.

"There's something wrong here, alright," his reflection told him. "And I'm looking at it."

Startled, Ichigo reflexively drew back from the mirror. It was that thing, he realized, staring back at him through the glass. Different than before, more normal, its skin and hair were still discolored but far less disheveled and its movements, while strange and ungainly, were far more fluid. It set the helmet and mask down on the counter and drummed its fingers on it, seeming so much more tangible than before. It grinned at him, the new irises it had in its coal black eyes glittered like amber on sackcloth.

Both eyes. The gaping wound and rolling black blood was gone, apparently healed without a trace.

He realized the light throughout the ship was the same color as the neural link liquid he subjected himself too. "Is that what this place is?" Ichigo asked, covering his initial shock with aggravated demands, crossing his arms over his chest. "Some kind of mental construct, here inside my neural link?"

His reflection giggled at him, high pitched and rapid with madness. "That depends," it said, leaning towards him, its hands on the countertop, "On where ya been, and where ya going."

Ichigo felt his frown deepen. It was clear there was some type of memory manipulation going on here. Nothing else could explain the back and forth he had just experienced.

"What's the matter?" it asked, a smirk stretching across its face, "Don't you believe in…" It paused as its eyes took on a new level of crazed intensity. "Time travel?"

Ichigo steeled his gaze it, refusing to waste any more time on this ridiculous insanity. "I don't what you are, or where you came from, whether you're some kind of neural shadow, a couple of cross-wired subroutines miss-firing from these burned out links, or my own subconscious folded back on itself. The point is that I don't care," Ichigo said levelly, "And these weird mind games are starting to piss me off."

The grin vanished from its face and it straightened up, leaning towards the glass surface of its side of the mirror. "You think this is a game?"

Ichigo shrugged with indifference. "Link assembly can cause weird dreams, this one is just a bit weirder that most. As soon it gets fully bonded and I wake up from whatever feedback-induced dreamstate this is, I'll delete you. Problem solved."

It stared at him blankly for a long moment before letting out a full chested guffaw. "You'll _delete_ me?" it laughed. With a snap, its face turned ugly, glowering at him through the mirror. "Trust me, you're going to have to do a lot worse than that."

A ripple passed through Ichigo, twisting and undulating the world around him before passing as quickly as it came. Perplexed, Ichigo gave cursory glance around but found everything basically the same. He looked back at his bizarre reflection to see it bent over, as if from exertion, and staring at its hands with a gleam of triumph in its eyes. "Now that the tables have turned," it panted, "Let's see you make your threats."

Ichigo waved an impatient hand at it, rolling his eyes. "You're just a bad copy and I'll do more than make threats." Ichigo kept his voice hard but couldn't fully hold in the falter as he started to detect some irregularities in his surroundings.

"Mighty big talk coming from a guy-"

Realization dawned on Ichigo and the bottom of his stomach fell out.

"-trapped in a mirror."

Ichigo could feel his heart beginning to beat harder as the sheer incongruity of it all began to sink in. The door leading back to the common room was on the wrong side. The printing on Yuzu's hairbrush was backwards. The crack Karin had accidentally put in the countertop was now near the left sink instead of the right one. "Shit," Ichigo breathed, looking around at this opposite version of his home, running his fingers through his hair. "Oh _shit,"_ he said again, feeling the scar at his hairline on the wrong side of his head. "Shit shit shit!"

Ichigo's reflection began to cackle, its fingers clenching into claws as it reveled in apparent victory. "Finally!" it said in exultation, throwing its head back and laughing its mad, chittering giggle at the ceiling. "Now _you'll_ know what it's like to be stuck here! Your reign is over, this is my body now!"

Ichigo could feel it, stifling him, like everything was closing in on him and he knew this wasn't some trick or game. "Let me out of here," he commanded, "Now, godammit."

It just laughed at him all the harder in response. "Or what?" it wheezed at him. "Not enjoying the view from the dungeons, O king of the castle? I'm not surprised, you've always been a pretender to the throne."

Ichigo stared at it, his hands balling into fists as he watched his white haired doppelganger dance around in his clothes. Looking down at himself he realized he was now wearing that strange, black softsuit. "What do you mean, 'pretender'?"

"Oh, I think you're beginning to catch on. Hey, how's your piloting these days? Still second nature?" it asked, ignoring his question. "It should be." Its expression turned sinister. "After all, I'm the one who taught you."

"You're lying."

It laughed in Ichigo's face. "Am I? C'mon, you know it's true. Didn't you ever stop to wonder just where all these natural skills came from? How about I let you in on a little secret…" It leaned conspiratorially towards him, whispering, "You've just been copying me this whole time."

"Bullshit," Ichigo said vehemently. There was no way that could be true, Ichigo had developed his skills since he was little, and had honed them as he gradually took over piloting his father's medical ship. It simply couldn't be possible, unless… "You're saying you've been here, all along?"

"Longer than you can imagine," it hissed at him. Pacing back and forth, it looked like he was becoming slightly more unhinged, wringing his hands and staring off into space. "Waiting for centuries, fractured and fragmented, had to reassemble… piece by piece… do you know how difficult that is? DO YOU?" it screamed before calming considerably. "Locked away in your genome, called _junk DNA_ by your ignorant scientists," it raged, its emotions oscillating wildly, "But once I felt your first neural link… yes, I knew it wouldn't be long after that."

"My first link…"

"Oh yes." Its speech was getting more disjointed as it went on. "Saw you… and saw such… _potential_ ," it said, relishing the word. "I knew… I knew it was close, the time of our… ah, yes that's the word. Our _resurrection._ Thought your father, but no, not enough…"

"Dad? What's he got to do with this?"

"Carriers, all of them, nothing but filthy bags of meat… sustaining us." It lunged towards the glass, splaying its fingers out and then raking its nails across the surface. "All but a few, such as yourself! And precious few they are…"

Ichigo knew he had to keep it talking, maybe it'd let slip some more information. "A few what? What makes them different?"

"Potential… Ability to decode the… the shadow. But have to be molded, needed to turn you into…" it trailed off.

"A what? Turn me into a _what?_ "

"A weapon!" it giggled gleefully. "And it took all my power, but I succeeded!"

"I don't-"

"Understand? Of course you don't! Your kind is too simple, I had to push you…" It dragged its fingers down its face, raking against the skin. "Had to push you, had to _break_ you… Feedback from your primitive terminals, needles in your eyes, reverberating in your skull… Unbalancing the power levels in your decrepit medical ship, making you fix it, over and over… Had to drive you, drive away the lights in your life, replace them with darkness. Leave you as dark as we are. Leave you nothing but a shell, unloved and unlovable," it sneered, "Even by Orihime…"

Ichigo felt nothing but white hot rage, his fingers balled into fists tight enough to make his hands ache and his eyes narrow as dangerously as he'd ever let them. He aimed a single finger at this horrid thing that had stolen his body and let all his righteous indignation boil over, leveling in the harshest condemnation he could think of at the time. "FUCK YOU!"

It chuckled darkly in response. "You see? Only able to draw up the anger, the _fear._ "

Something about the way it said that last word struck something in Ichigo, livid as he was, and he spat out his next question. "Fear? What fear?"

It stared at him for a long moment before curving its lips into a smile of pure malice. "Loss." Its voice was barely a whisper but the word was heavy with meaning.

His ire deflated, Ichigo's eyes widened in growing panic and denial. "No…" he breathed.

"Yes!" it cackled, staring at him with mad, hungry eyes. "Thought your father, but no, not enough! Couldn't bring him down. All because of that woman…"

"Shut up… SHUT UP!" Ichigo screamed. Unbidden, the memories swam to the surface.

_I couldn't think clearly, all I remember is trying to work the panel on the door and watching it fuzz over and go black. I moved to the blast door window, she was still there, I just needed to open the panel locks, but nothing was working. I ran from the primary to the secondary but it went black as I came close. I could feel my link roaring like static in my head. I tried to get it under control but it was too late, the gangway beyond had flexed and splintered apart, all floating silently in space. And, my mother..._

"Was so hard, needed everything I had… but I spun my control out to your tiny, simple systems, and I tore apart your flimsy bridge," it said, almost lovingly, "I sent her out into the cold, dark. And I did it…"

"NO!" His voice was raw, broken as it left his lips.

"All for you…" it purred.

He could not afford to show weakness here, it was clear the only thing it understood was malice. "I will kill you," Ichigo promised lowly, swearing it with every fiber of his being.

"Oh… so you're a killer now? Well you won't have the chance," it shot back at him, nearly dancing in place. "Been trapped in your link, been a _shadow_ ," it said, derision dripping from every syllable. "Now the link is new, different, and it is _mine_ … and this time _you_ will be the shadow."

Fuming, Ichigo snapped, "No more bullshit, what are you, really?"

It gave him a mad grin and tilted its head too far to be normal. "I'm _you_ , with all that limitless potential unlocked, with none of those ridiculous things like conscience or morality standing in my way. I'm you, only better."

"My better half? Don't make me laugh, I've met my better half and she's way prettier than you."

"So have I," it said, sucking its breath in through its teeth, "And as soon as we're done here, I'm going to pay a little visit to a certain little white moon."

The blood drained from Ichigo's face as recognition set in. The White Moon. There was only one other time he had heard that phrase, spoken by a twisted hybrid of human and hollow. There was only one reason why this thing would say it now: confirmation.

It was true. All the hints, the mad ramblings, the things it knew and spoke of, nothing else could explain it. Ichigo's repressed suspicion, buried in the back of his mind by the sheer impossibility of the idea, and what it might really mean for him, came rushing upon him in, horrid ramifications and all. "You're a Hollow." He said it without inflection, accusation, or realization. It was just a statement, a truth, and there was no sense in denying it.

"You wanted to know what I really am? Well, it looks like you're finally," it said, staring him in the eye, "Starting to understand. You didn't really think bio-mechanization was the only evolutionary option we explored, did you? You've been told, but you didn't understand, we're _legion._ We're everywhere, just waiting to woken back up."

"And what happens when you wake up? They become one of those… things, from the comm station?"

"Fuck no," it snorted. "Those things? They weren't… ripe, I guess. Too little, not enough code. It adds up you know, get enough code and, well, you get something like _you._ "

Code… Junk DNA it had said. Surely it didn't mean… "You're amassing your own genetic code, in us?" Ichigo asked, nearly disbelieving what he was suggesting. "How-"

"How long did the blonde one, your gene-gineer, tell you we've been here?"

Ichigo halted, snapping his mouth shut. "Centuries, he said."

"Plenty of time to write what we needed to, snippets here and there, just waiting for them to grow, so we could be reborn."

"That would mean…"

"Don't strain yourself with this logical leap."

"Over time, you're turning us… into you."

"Give the man a prize."

"But, you can't…" Ichigo realized. "The Ministry of Population Control…" he gestured emphatically, "You know, _decides_. You have to apply and get approved and so on."

"Exactly." It crossed its arms and stared at Ichigo's uncomprehending face. "C'mon man, you have a whole branch of your government set up to decide who gets to knock up who… They're not standing in our way, they're doing our job for us!"

There was a long moment in which no one said anything more, and Ichigo felt chills down his back. "How many?" he asked, his mouth feeling dry, "How many like me are there?"

"Oh-ho-ho," it chuckled. "Who knows! All it takes is time, adding a little bit here, a little bit there… Take some from him, and you put it _deep_ into her," its eyes rolled back as it began pumping its hips.

"Shut your fucking mouth, you're not going anywhere near her," Ichigo told it, his tone still the same, even level. He had moved beyond the flare of fury he held at the memory of his mother's death. He had discovered that there were emotions darker and more powerful than a simple thirst for vengeance.

"She and I? But we've already been _so close_ ," it said, drawing out the words with a lascivious undertone. Its fingers slid along its bottom lip to touch the tip of its tongue, all the while staring at Ichigo. "I can still remember those noises she made…"

Ichigo realized he had risen to the bait only after his fist had collided with the surface of the mirror. Having no more effect than if he had punched a solid bulkhead, the glass remained perfectly intact aside from small, shuddering ripples that rolled out from where he had hit it. His hand, however, immediately seared with pain, his knuckles cracked and the skin broken and welling with blood as he clutched it back to his chest.

"Interesting!" it cackled. "First I tell you I'm the one who murdered your mother and all you do is make empty threats… I mention your little fuck-buddy and now we're seeing some real reaction!"

Through the haze of pain clouding his vision, over the roiling emotions brought up by what this thing had done and was promising to do, overpowering the panic he felt at what all this meant, Ichigo managed to notice one thing. 'Understand' the eyeless one had said to him. 'Understand.' Staring, Ichigo finally began to feel like he knew what it had been talking about.

Just as Ichigo's hand was broken and bleeding, so was his reflection's.

"Where the hell are you going?" it asked him as Ichigo stumbled from the bathroom, heading back into the weird, backwards common room. "I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"

"Force over area squared…" Ichigo muttered to himself. His reflection was still screaming at him from the mirror but he blocked it out, making his way around the room. He had a theory, but to test it he needed something specific. Clumsily navigating the ship, the entire place being backwards from usual, he made his way towards the one area he thought might have what he needed. If his theory was correct, he needed something to put as much force as he could over a tiny area, something with a sharp, rigid tip.

Stumbling into the galley, he wasn't sure what it would be, but he figured he'd know it when he saw it. Opening drawers at random, he shuffled from one to the next, trying to find anything that might work. Resignation was beginning to set in as he looked through the last of the drawers, finding nothing but Yuzu's various cooking and preparation implements. Sighing heavily, he opened the last drawer and his eyebrows rose. This didn't belong to Yuzu.

Ichigo reached down and drew it out. Where it had come from wasn't really important, Ichigo thought to himself as he held it up to check its weight and balance. All that mattered was the fact that it sat comfortably in his hand and fit his needs perfectly. His face set with grim determination, he made one brief stop in the infirmary to grab the last item he needed before returning to the bathroom.

"Needed some alone time or something? Needed to cool off?" it asked, "I know I'm gonna need a breather myself after I'm done with your girlfriend. Man, I am gonna wreck that bi-"

"I told you to shut up," Ichigo said, unrolling a long strip of white medical tape with his teeth. The sticky tearing sound echoed ominously through the empty, lifeless ship. "You're not going anywhere near her."

"What the fuck're you doing? What do you have?"

Ichigo smiled, detecting a trace of confusion, a note of panic in its voice. "I think I understand what I need to do here." Ichigo continued wrapping his hand tightly, winding the white tape around and around until he felt it was secure.

"I don't think you understand shit."

"Think again, asshole." Ichigo tore off the end of the tape and tossed it away before reaching back and swinging hard, driving the tip of the black handled, long bladed carving knife securely lashed to his hand into the surface of the mirror with all the strength he had.

Right into the widened eye of his reflection.

The next thing he knew, Ichigo was lying on the floor of the bathroom, his vision blurred and everything sounding dull and far away in his ears. It took a moment to realize the only thing could hear was screaming. The whole side of his face was throbbing lowly and when he pressed free hand to his eye, it came away coated in blood. It hurt less than he though it would. Shock, probably.

Ichigo fixed his remaining eye on the lip of the counter, reached up and hauled himself back to his feet. Pressing the heel of his hand to his raggedly damaged eye socket, ignoring the stinging sensation as the torn skin rubbed against his palm, he spat out the blood that had dribbled into his mouth and looked back at the mirror. To say he was surprised would be an understatement.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" it screamed at him over and over, writhing around and clawing at its own eye socket. Rather than the black blood that he expected, or even red blood that he would have considered possible, instead a pure white light streamed from behind its fingers. It screamed again, a thoughtless shriek of agony and rage, before it flung itself at the mirror. "YOU FOOL!"

The crack had split its head open and from within poured a light that filled the bathroom, spilling out into the ship with an unearthly radiance. "You might want to get that looked at," Ichigo quipped. "I know a doctor."

"IMPOSSIBLE!" it screamed, its head pressed up against the mirror. "I'VE WAITED TOO LONG, THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" The crack in its face seemed to spread, splintering across the surface of the glass with ear-piercing rapports. It screamed incoherently as the widening crevices shot out beyond the borders of the mirror, shooting through the walls and ceiling.

Doing his best to remain calm, he stifled his alarm and simply watched as the cracks spread and grew, shaking and widening as if a great force was pulling the very ship apart. He could see his reflection staring at him, an incredulous, disbelieving look on its face. Ichigo only shrugged in response, turning to watch the world shatter around him with a blinding white glare.

His hand pressed to his ruined eye, his other hand weighted down, Ichigo stood his ground. Everything around him became suffused in white light, overwhelming the bathroom, the bulkheads, the mirror, everything. And then, just as if someone had turned off the lights, it vanished and plunged him into utter darkness. Blinking his eye, he realized he couldn't discern if there was simply nothing to see, or if he couldn't see at all. "Hmm."

"I hope you're pleased with yourself."

Ichigo's gut clenched at that slithering voice, the one belonging to his reflection. Out of the darkness it walked towards him, a soft light building around them and its hand pressed to the side of its face just like Ichigo. It took a moment for the realization to set in that there was no longer a mirror in between them.

"Take a look around, you're fucking dead and you don't even know it."

Having nothing better to do, Ichigo did look around, pulling off the tape and gingerly slipping the suit gloves on. The light building around them was coming from hundreds, thousands of stars all quietly beginning to shine in the darkness. Beneath his feet was solid metal and it took him a moment to recognize what it was.

He stood upon the surface of a spaceship, one of dozens spread all around him, all unimaginably huge and pointed in a uniform direction. Each was an enormous structure of metal and glassymer, with giant sweeping planes like the one he stood upon, stretching far out beyond his vision. Beyond them was the familiar swath of pure black, littered with tiny white stars. Perplexed, he didn't immediately recognize it, the starscape was aglow with green and amber clouds of stellar nebula. The last thing he noticed, feeling miniscule against the massive ships, arrayed like pillars reaching up into the night, was that the air was getting thinner.

"After all the work I put into building you a perfect prison," it said, coming to a stop. "You went and fucked it all up. Do you even know where you are now? The cold, the dark, this is _my_ place, not yours, and you will-"

Ichigo quirked an eyebrow as its voice trailed off, a moment of confusion on its face. "I think you may have forgot something," he said as the air slipped away from the both of them. "You're talking about places, well we traded, remember?" He pulled the helmet and sinister mask from under his arm and held them up, turning it over and looking at its face.

"Give that to me, it doesn't belong to you," it said, the dissipating air making its voice small and plaintive. It took a step towards him but halted, finding the tip of the knife suddenly brought to bear.

"You said you turned me into a weapon, filled my life with shit, left me to darkness," Ichigo said, speaking half to his reflection and half to the mask in his hands. He could hear his voice threatening to break, but the hand holding the knife was sure and steady.

"THIS IS MY DOMAIN, GIVE ME THAT MASK!" it screamed at him, moving lethargically across the space between them.

"No," Ichigo said, his eyes rising to meet his reflection's. "The cold. The dark. The emptiness. Now it's your turn to understand; these things don't belong to you, they've always belonged to me." His words stopped it short. "You made me into a weapon? You did too good a job."

"No-" It reached out a panicked, futile hand to stop him.

Ichigo looked back at the mask. If this is what he needed to do, to defend those who couldn't… If this is what it meant to protect the people he cared about… If this is what he needed to become, to help the people he loved…

His thoughts turned to Rukia as he lifted the helmet and slid it down over his head, letting the mask snap firmly into place just as the last wisp of air around them slipped away. If this was the price he would be forced to pay just to hold onto all that he held dear.

He would pay it.

He watched his reflection grasping at its neck, trying vainly to keep breathing. Secure within the softsuit, the long knife a familiar presence in his gloved hand, Ichigo walked the few strides towards his suffocating reflection, staring down at it through the eyes of the mask. Its face, split from its eye down its cheek, looked burned and blackened while its other eye stared up at him, terror, madness, defiance and pleading all rolling across its face. For a moment Ichigo considered leniency.

But only for a moment.

There are dark places of the soul, hidden places, where no light shines. Places where nightmares live, where the deepest and darkest of thoughts find company. Normally these places are small, benign, filled with dark wishes and irrational but harmless hatreds. In Ichigo, they were vast and depthless, bound to him with chains of guilt and sorrow, weighing him down. Though he had done his best to deny them, Ichigo knew these places well, his reflection had seen to that.

Rukia had been concerned for him, worried that the act of killing might destroy him. She knew, better than anyone, what it could do to a person and she had wanted him to avoid that fate as desperately as she had wanted anything. It was a harsh, awful and undeniable truth, however, that sometimes killing was unavoidable.

Sometimes it was necessary. And Rukia would grudgingly agree.

So when he planted a heavy boot into the chest of his strangled doppelganger and kicked it off the surface of the ship they stood upon, watching it tumble slowly away into the void of space, kicking and flailing without purchase, he felt those dark places lighten just a little. His soul unburdening ever so slightly.

Turning away, Ichigo could feel his eye beginning to throb and his face slick and uncomfortable beneath the mask. He looked down at himself as a wave of pain and nausea washed over him, realizing what he must look like. Who he looked like.

He sighed, his breath soft inside the snug helmet and began walking across the surface of the ship, headed nowhere in particular. He kept walking, his hand tight around the knife and his composure calm so he was unsurprised when he heard the voice once more, again coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

"Think you're so smart? This is a temporary setback. A momentary reprieve. Nothing more," it hissed blackly.

"That's unfortunate," Ichigo said, his voice sounding oddly distorted and resonant behind the mask.

"You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?" it asked. "All you've done is send me back to the darkness. You've actually done me a favor."

Ichigo stopped walking, turning his masked face up to the stars. "I didn't mean unfortunate for me, I meant for you."

"More idle threats? Really, I thought you were better than that."

"Better than this?" Ichigo asked as he stretched his hand out to the star strewn sky. "Maybe," he admitted, before mercilessly thrusting out the knife and drawing the blade across the darkness, slicing it across the fabric of space and letting it bite deeply into the night. He heard it scream in shock and pain, the screech of tortured inescapability, and still Ichigo sliced across the sky, leaving tattered rents in the darkness. "Maybe, but not today."

Panting, its voice pained and raw, it asked, "Wh-what have you done?"

Reaching up, Ichigo grasped the darkness he had cut away, clenching his fingers into it like a tangible thing and drawing it around him, letting it settle about his shoulders. "You think I'm better than this? I have taken what I need from you, stripped you of all that knowledge and experience, all that power." The darkness fluttered around him, ragged and rippling in unfelt breezes. "You think I'm _better_ than this? Taking everything you are, everything you can do, everything I _hate_?" Ichigo asked with every ounce of venom he possessed, "And I will leave you here, powerless, alone, chained to the cold and dark." He turned his masked face up to the lightless heavens. "Don't you understand, I'm not better than this, I. AM. NOW. SO. MUCH. WORSE."

"You can't," it panted, hissing darkly as its voice faded into the far reaches, "You can't manage it forever. You don't know that ship's potential, I was _made_ to fly it… Someday, someday soon, you will have to pay for what you have taken from me."

Ichigo could feel the darkness around him seeping through the material of the softsuit, chilling his skin and writhing its way up into his mind. His eye began to prickle and burn, like fiery needles stabbing at it. From behind his mask, Ichigo heard the words form on his lips and ring out to the darkness.

" _I WILL STOP YOU."_

He took the knife and used it to slice open a widening tear in front of him. His reflection had said it but he hadn't believed it until now, when it suddenly made perfect sense. Time travel. Ichigo-who-was-not-Ichigo stepped through the tear and left the surface of the ship behind.

He found himself seated on one of the couches in the _Masaki's_ media room, the holo-vid playing on the far display. And there was a human seated off to his side. Familiar eyes widened in shock and confusion as they turned to face each other. The human didn't understand, but he would soon.

He played his part, showed the human what was required, and stood next to him as he vanished, retreating from this mental construct and down into memory. Alone again, he walked calmly from the media room to the kitchen. Opening the drawer, he reverently set the knife in its proper place before shutting it again. His preparations complete, he stepped back, pulling his shadows around him.

Ichigo Kurosaki, the man who, in the fullness of time, would come to be known as The-Piercer-of-Heavens, turned his face down and looked at what he had become, and vanished.

Upwards, into consciousness.

* * *

"You sure he's going to be okay?" Renji didn't sound too certain. "He looks kinda sick."

"He'll be fine," Jinta replied dismissively, "That happens when you get a link installed this late in life."

"He's only twenty seven," Rukia felt obligated to point out somewhat defensively. After all, they were practically the same age. Jinta rolled his eyes as only a late teenager could, muttering about 'old people' before heading back to rejoin Kisuke and Ururu.

She watched Renji rub his chin with his finger, sigh and then make his way in that direction as well. Rukia rolled her eyes as he joined Uryu, the two of them staring at the magnificent ship the same way men have always stood and stared at beautiful, complex machines: arms crossed in thoughtful contemplation to cover the fact that they only had a vague notion of how it actually worked.

She turned back to Ichigo as he lay unconscious on the flatbed of a service vehicle. Uryu had placed the pack he had brought beneath his head as a cushion, but he still looked pale and a light sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead. Rukia sighed, feeling tense and agitated. They didn't have the time for Ichigo to be incapacitated, but at the same time they still needed him to have a working link in order to fly this ship at all. She sat herself at his side and turned to listen to what Urahara was saying in order to distract herself.

"-a trio of aneutronic, proton boron based fusion reactors," he said, pointing proudly. "Instead of like on the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , the engines and reactors are one to one. Each one feeds a dedicated thesium-three plasmid drive chamber and accelerant column engine. It's an earlier design than most use nowadays, so no suspension matrix, but it's reliable and still functions at high output even when damaged. The cowling retracts across the top to release the ship's single shuttle-"

Rukia tuned him out again, setting her chin on the palm of her hand and losing herself in quiet thought until she heard her name called out.

"Rukia? You may want to pay attention to this next part," Urahara chided. "The weapon systems and navigation interfaces on this ship are slightly… unconventional."

"Unconventional how?" Rukia asked skeptically. Kisuke was just about to speak when a small hand was placed against his arm.

"Excuse me," Ururu piped up, garnering everyone's attention at the unexpected source of interruption, "What happened to Mister Kurosaki?"

"What are you talking about Ururu, he's right-" Jinta paused, "Hey, where the hell did he go?"

Rukia had turned to look down at her side, expecting to see Ichigo lying there. The empty flatbed of the truck was all she saw. "But, I just looked away for a moment, he was right here…"

From behind them, starting as a low, throaty purr and ramping up to an open, thrumming rumble that vibrated the entire hangar, the _Zangetsu's_ three massive engines began spinning up. There was shouting and pointing, scrambling to get back from it and wordless shrugs to each other as they tried to figure out what was going on. Rukia, standing up on top of the service car's flatbed, watched with a growing certainty as she recognized the sequence of system and control tests across the surface of the ship.

"That's a pre-flight check."

With a burst of escaping gas a boarding ramp began sliding down from the belly of the great black ship, the smoke clearing to reveal a shadowed figure standing on the bottom step. Clad in black, the flightsuit was paneled with strategic plates of dark armor and his boots thudded against the ground as he stepped down.

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked, comparing the figure to the man she knew. The figure stood straighter, different from the cramped, pinched posture of a lanky man in too-small spacecraft. Instead of civilian clothes, this new flightsuit had a military cut to it, and the armored chest and shoulders enhanced the broad planes of his body. He turned towards her.

The mask on the front of the helmet, its features getting clearer as the smoke drifted away, made her pause in irrational hesitation. It was so much like other helmet faceplates she had seen, functional and efficient, she firmly told herself, nothing more. There was simply no reason that the visor, however much it looked like a pair of narrowed, sinister eyes, should make her feel like she was being watched by a predator. No reason that the ventilator junction across his mouth should remind her of clenched, sharpened teeth.

It was just coincidence that the mask across his face had the sharp, angled lines of a skull as if they'd been drawn from the nightmares of some mad, military engineer. Certainly nothing to be uneasy about. Rukia jumped down from the flatbed, unconsciously wiping her clammy palms on her borrowed pants and walked towards him. With the hiss and clank of interlocking metal that made the others jump, the mask split apart, hinging open like a pair of jaws and sliding up into place above his head. She saw his eyes flutter open and lock onto hers, and while she'd never admit it, the familiar warm chocolate color soothed her nerves.

"Oh good, you found the helmet I designed for you," Kisuke said, stepping up next to Rukia. "How's the suit?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance, shrugging his shoulder as he adjusted the material down his chest. "It's a little snug." He turned to Rukia, his eyes softening as he gazed down at her. "C'mon, your suit's on board."

"Shall I review the ship's specifications for you, now that you're awake?" Kisuke asked with a wide smile.

"I'm sure he can read the manual," spoke up a clear, cool voice from the airlock.

"I know that voice…" Ichigo muttered, looking up towards the sound.

"You'll all have plenty of time to kill in jail." Detectives Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rangiku Matsumoto walked calmly out of the dimness, weapons in hand and flanked by another dozen armed officers.

"Except for you, Mistress Shihoin." The voice was low and dangerous, tinged with a barely perceptible note of digital processing. "You're coming with me."

Yoruichi turned to see Commander Soi-Fon, her former head of personal security, walking towards her out of the darkness. Her glowing red eye fixed like a laser sight as she raised her arm, the whole of it unhinging and folding away, revealing the very wicked looking large caliber weapon concealed within.

Ichigo and Rukia exchanged exasperated, frustrated looks as the patrol force officers spread out around them, their weapons all pointed in their direction. "What are we supposed to do now?" Rukia hissed out of the corner of her mouth at Urahara, resignedly putting her hands in the air. "We don't have time for this."

"Time is exactly what you have, you're all under arrest," Detective Hitsugaya announced, a determined seriousness too old for his features was stamped across his youthful face. "Again."

"Let me handle this," was all Ichigo said as he also put his hands up. Rukia had enough time to glance back in his direction, hearing the sound of sliding, interlocking metal, to see the mask clamp back down over his face.


	26. Initial Phase Transition

Somewhere far off at the end of the gloomy, underground hangar an overworked atmo system droned on. The scrubber filters had been neglected, leaving the air inside the enormous cavern musty and uncomfortably hot. Sputtering slightly, it seemed to keep running through sheer stubbornness alone, working to fill the massive space with breathable air as its low, continuous brushing echoed off the stone walls and floor, bouncing dully off the mounds and piles of disused scrap metal.

This sound, this far-off barely discernable humming seemed to fill the empty space as two groups stood stock still, staring at each other from across one of the few pools of light spilling down from the ceiling. Both unmoving and silent, the fugitives had a worn and weary look about them while the patrol force officers' clean and armored uniforms glinted like so much of the debris spread across the floor. Around them, out in the darkness, the dismantled spacecraft bore uncanny resemblances to huge metal skeletons, their bodies picked clean of the usable parts that had been meticulously reassembled into the single, enormous ship behind them. Blacker than the depths of space and crouched on its landing gear, patiently overseeing the altercation between the patrol force members and its new pilot, its engines rumbled, low and even, adding another note to the constant drone of the atmo system.

"Listen to me." Ichigo took a step forward, his hands raised but his mask down. It made his voice oddly distorted, layered and eerie, and Ichigo did his best to focus despite the wary looks it garnered from the patrol enforcers.

"You have the right to remain silent," Detective Hitsugaya cut in evenly, his tone verging on boredom. His only direct response to Ichigo was to raise his weapon, letting him know in no uncertain terms, not to come any closer.

"This is an emergency," Ichigo continued with careful enunciation. He could see the younger patrol members, well trained but edgy from adrenalin, fanned out around them, each aiming their weapon at him and his friends. Without even realizing it, he had already begun rolling vector computations on their weapon trajectories through his new link, extrapolating the places to go for cover in case anyone started shooting. Loading the results into his optic implants, his vision darkened somewhat as the glowing lines and contextual data was rendered in his field of view. Thinking it curious, probably just a polarization glitch, he nonetheless put the strange effect out of his mind as he had more pressing concerns to deal with.

Figuring he'd send the weapon and cover data to Rukia, the command to open a short-range connection to her was second nature by now, but when it failed to resolve he realized two of the enforcers were painting them with neural disruptors, effectively muting link communications. Testing his connection to the ship, he found it had been terminated as well, and having been datastarved for so long while his link had been burned out, the sudden return to a communications white-out grated on his already thin patience. All of this happening over fractions of a second, he turned a hard look at the younger, paler detective as he grit his teeth, only tangentially noticed his vision darkening further.

"Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law," Hitsugaya went on dispassionately.

Ichigo cleared his throat, daring to interrupt the detective's sterile Miranda delivery. "There is a hostile alien spacecraft on its way in to this solar system. It's been lured here by whoever framed us. It's probably the most powerful ship anybody has ever seen and we have to stop it before they try to take it over, or it starts destroying anything and everything that gets in its way."

There was a long moment in which no one spoke, and even Ichigo thought the whole thing sounded like some ludicrous science fiction story. Casting his eyes around the various patrol force members and the two detectives he could see that half of them thought he was crazy and the other half were too distracted by the imposing sight of the black ship behind him to have listened. The curvy, blonde detective looked as if she wanted in on the joke and younger, white-haired one in charge simply let the silence draw out, a tiny quirk of his eyebrow the only indication he had heard the outlandish explanation.

"You have the right to an attorney, though I suggest a therapist. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you," he finally said, matching Ichigo's flat tonality. "Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"

Growing more frustrated and feeling foolish with his hands in the air, Ichigo could feel his lips trying to curl away from his teeth as he clenched his fingers into fists. "I'm sorry Detective, but we don't have time to waste. My friends and I," Uryu and Renji mutely motioned at this, as if to object at that classification, "Have to get in our ships and we have to leave."

Toshiro's face hardened as his resignation with routine dissipated, letting the uncompromising dedication to duty that had propelled him to such a high rank at such a young age show clearly on his face. "I don't think you fully appreciate the situation you're in here. How you have managed to evade patrol force capture for this long, I have no idea, but ever since you slipped past us at the bar on Junrinan Two, and then Captain Kyoraku, we've been on your tail. Tracking you down from out on that rock out past the sixteenth orbit all the way to here, between the twin suns wasn't easy, but it's over now. You've had a good run, but any minute now the crew on the ships you left in orbit will be arrested, so there's nowhere else for you to go except," he held up a pair of handcuffs, "Into custody."

Ichigo huffed out a breath through his nose, the sound of it crackling in his ears. The searing hot pins and needles feeling had returned to his eyes and were slowly sharpening in intensity, making Ichigo's teeth ache as he clenched them together. "You're making a mistake, Detective…" he began, fighting off the sensation as they dug their way deeper into his eyes. He felt his shoulders stiffen and heard the material of his gloves flex as his hands balled tighter. There, amid his darkened vision and throbbing skull, the white hot pins and needles brought with them the spark of an idea.

"It's no mistake, Mister Kurosaki. Too proud to run, too smart to fight, too stubborn to give up," Toshiro said. "Your only option is come along quietly, I know your type."

"Trust me," Ichigo uttered, "You've never met anyone like me." The pin pricks and heat burning in his eyes began to sharpen and resolve into the bases of calculations. Focusing, they became clearer and clearer, matrices of equations spinning out the positions of every patrol enforcer facing him, highlighting the firing vectors of each of their weapons.

The idea was crazy, he was sure of it, but the more it revolved around his mind the more plausible it seemed. Neural disruptors worked on a set of standards that all links employed, but he didn't have a standard neural link. Yes, he said to himself, his eyes narrowing behind his mask, the concept was sound and it would let him reconnect to the ship's systems. He tamped down the uncharacteristic sense of gleefulness and forced his lips back out of the grin they had formed as he opened his link's wireless system, dialed the bandwidth up to full and poured everything he could into it.

Down. Down. Down, into the system he plunged. Past the abstraction layers and interface commands, deep into the heart of the processor engine, letting the core of the system unfold in his mind. Thousands of permutations of calculations were at his command, each on dozens of variables intricately describing everything around him all in the language of mathematics. Darker and darker, the world fell away form him as swirling, twisting strings of formulas he understood but written in symbology he could only half comprehend burst behind his eyelids. Rukia had asked him once how it could be that he was able to pilot the way he could, and this was the answer, this ability to extrapolate the underlying principles of force, angle, velocity, and time. It had never been so clear to him, so easy to reach for as the darkness blotted everything else out. He could see the system spread before him, and he knew what variables to explore.

And what to exploit.

From the darkness, he drew the connection command to link back with the systems on the ship, stripped it of padding and ran it through his short-range comm buffer. He could regain link status to the ship, he was sure of it. Then it would be a simple matter of opening the communication systems array and… and the darkness around him whispered that once re-linked to the ship, he could put a stop to these aggravating delays, permanently.

Ichigo faltered for a second before redoubling his efforts on his comm buffer. Just need to open the communications system on the ship, contact Shuhei.

The pins in his eyes pierced harder, burned hotter, and he felt for a second like his head was being seared from the inside out. Just… Open… The… Communica-

_The weapons system._

No. Ichigo refused to listen to the insidious whispers at the back of his mind. He had triumphed over that presence, it couldn't affect him any longer. It, in turn, laughed at his naivete, his hubris that he thought he could descend down to the core of his abilities without encountering their source. Ichigo tried to focus, but the whispers only grew louder.

_A power unlike any other is within reach, to delay is to fail, and to fail is to die._

Ichigo felt weak as images of everyone he had ever known, dead and broken and bleeding, flickered through his mind. Horrid and nauseating, he felt himself recoil unconsciously from them even as that dark, shadowy whisper found the crack in Ichigo's own defenses, exploiting it.

_Protect them. Together the power will be ours, together we cannot fail. Now, open…_

"The weapon systems…"

From her place beside him, Rukia looked at Ichigo with a growing degree of alarm. There was a shocking intensity in his voice, a harsh metallic rasp, and he hardly sounded like himself. Her eyes widened as a prickling feeling sparked through her neural link, something that shouldn't have even been possible, and her thin eyebrows rose as she realized it was vaguely similar to their feelink, only quickly growing wild and out of control. Confused, she only had a moment to consider it before that prickling burst like a blown fuse inside her mind.

Pressure. For a brief moment, that was all she could think of, all she could feel as it tried to push her into the ground. Her neural link came roaring back online and Rukia felt her knees grow weak as it struggled to process the sudden deluge of data from her wireless system, squeezing her mind from the inside out. Like the air had grown thick and heavy, her vision and hearing filled with static as her implants went haywire from feedback. Blinking rapidly through the distortion, she could see everyone around her affected as well, momentarily confused by the sudden and overwhelming weight within their minds. All except Ichigo.

Trying to parse the crush of data pounding through her head, she saw it was a single command and authenticated with Ichigo's security token. He was overcharging the amplitude on his wireless system, channeling the command with such intensity that it was defeating the neural disruptors and distorting the links and implants of everyone around him.

The momentary pressure abated with a piercing burst, the static vanishing from her vision, and she could see the shaky, confused looks on everyone's face freeze as the solid sound of unlocking plates and working rotors echoed across the hangar. Daring to turn her head up and behind, the gunports across the belly of the _Zangetsu_ had slid open and the autocannon turrets had rolled out into firing position, spinning around to take beads on the patrol enforcers. She jerked back around, eyes wide at Ichigo.

He was going to _shoot_ them.

Turning back to the officers, a cold grip of fear closing around her heart, she could see the realization dawn on them, as a group drawing back in surprise. Only the young, white-haired detective managed to hold his ground. While the others were momentarily paralyzed, he had kept his aim true, eyes narrowed, and was drawing a steadying breath as he tightened his finger on the trigger.

Shit. He was going to shoot Ichigo back.

Deciding that the situation was getting out of control, Rukia did the only thing she could think of before bullets started flying. "Get down!" she yelled, and collided with Ichigo like a tiny battering ram.

"Take cover!" Rangiku yelled, tackling Toshiro with surprising agility.

The clarion crack of a gunshot rang out through the cavernous hangar, Toshiro's gun flashing in the low light as he was thrown off his feet. Rukia felt her head tugged to the side as the round whipped through her hair, whistling past her ear with chilling proximity. Landing on Ichigo as they careened behind a piece of junked spacecraft, she frantically hauled him further behind cover, pushing him bodily to the ground and covering her own head with her arms.

Chaos ensued. Restraint, tenuous at best, was broken the second the shot rang out. Conflicting orders were shouted in a panic as younger patrol members aimed their weapons wildly. The older ones hauled the ones they could reach behind the nearest cover, crouching behind thick pieces of old fuselage and framework. Cracks of gunfire began splitting the air, leading to more confusion, leading to more gunfire.

Uryu and Renji had prudently dashed behind the nearest pieces of fuselage as soon as they saw Rukia in motion. Checking around them, they could see Tessai quickly hustling Jinta and Ururu away, Yoruichi melding back into the darkness and Urahara managing to discreetly slip out of sight. Glancing at each other, the two of them drew their weapons, both wondering just how this was going to play out.

"You're a criminal, any bright ideas?" Uryu asked dryly, wincing as another bullet hit the metal plating he had put to his back.

"I do my best to avoid law enforcement," Renji shot back.

"And when you can't?"

"I have a great-" Renji ducked back as the old viewport next to him shattered. "Lawyer."

Uryu stared at the crimson haired pirate for a long, long moment.

Rukia pushed herself up from atop Ichigo, the pops of gunfire and the zings of ricochets sounding loud in her ears as she ran her hands over her head and down her neck looking for any signs of damage. Finding nothing but her own singed hair, she turned down to the man laying prone beneath her, his masked face turning back at her.

"What are you doing?" they both asked each other in unison, Ichigo acidly and Rukia incredulously.

His masked face snaked right up close to Rukia's. "Get off me!" Ichigo snarled, the sharp slats of the mask's ventilator bearing a stark likeness to clenched teeth.

Rukia reared back as if he'd struck her across the face, eyes wide in disbelief. "What the hell is the matter with you?" she demanded. "You were going to kill a whole squad of patrol enforcers and two detectives!" Cracks of gunfire rang out, pinging off the metal they hid behind, punctuating her accusation.

Seething, unthinking rage was coursing through his veins as twin points of fiery blue-violet light pierced the veil that had muddled his thoughts. Focusing on using her eyes to guide him, like they were shining in the dark, he hauled himself away from the grip of that furious, ravenous hunger for power. He heard, as if from far off, that black raspy laughter flutter away as the shroud was stripped from his mind.

A change seemed to come over him, she could feel the angry tension flee his shoulders and he set his head back on the ground in silence. He hooked his fingers into the juncture of his mask and pried it up off his face with a concerted effort, and for a moment she saw the whites of his eyes far more shadowed than they should have been.

Ichigo gasped for air, free from the suddenly stifling mask, and blinked at the sudden shift as his vision cleared. Beginning to ebb and slip away, he could still feel the murderous wrath burn like acid through his veins. Mortified and furious at himself for being so easily manipulated, he didn't have an answer ready for her and when he finally met her eyes, the whole situation was made doubly worse. The way she was looking at him… it was like she didn't recognize him at all.

Steeling her gaze as she gripped him by the front of his flightsuit, her enhanced muscles tightening her fingers into the material, she brought her face down close to his. "Are you still my pilot, or not?" she spat at him. Ichigo only nodded his head, too caught up somewhere between shame and indignation to speak aloud. "Good, then that still makes me tac officer, and I don't recall giving you weapons free, _pilot,_ so: Stand. Down."

Ichigo abruptly released the firing control system from his neural link, but not without an involuntary glower. Blowing a calming breath, he did his best to release those last sparks of anger. However annoyed he may have felt at being ordered around, he reminded himself that if he could trust anyone, it would be her.

Above her, between the reports of gunfire and panicked shouting, she heard the turrets go offline and the engines spin down. Daring to raise her head she could see them idling, untargeted and immobile. "Good," she said, patting his cheek approvingly. Rippling up from the tips of her fingers and shivering down her spine, she felt that cool tingle of electricity the moment she touched his bare skin.

Still angered at his willingness resort to violence, she was mollified somewhat by his immediate response to her demand and rationalized his behavior at a reaction to his new link. She was about to remove her hand when the tingle up her arm surged to a jolt, changing to a sharp, searing flash. Jerking her hand away more forcefully than she needed to, she almost expected her fingertips to be red and burned, but they were perfectly normal when she looked.

Looking back at his bewildered expression, she cleared her throat to explain when another crack of gunfire, then another, then another, echoed around them, forcing her to duck back down onto him. She felt his arms wrap protectively around her and grew briefly concerned that the painful heat would return, but his touch was as cool and familiar as it always was.

Beneath the panicked shouts and warnings from the patrol members, the sound of metal footfalls on the gray durocrete grew conspicuously close. A shadow loomed over the entwined pair and they turned their heads, their expressions blanched as if they'd been caught in a compromising position. What caught their attention was a slender foot coming down to the ground with considerable force, crushing the grit and pebbles to dust.

Looking higher, Rukia and Ichigo found it was a woman, compact of frame and serious of disposition, standing calmly and paying no attention to the gunfire zipping past her. At first it appeared she wore something like a black, skin tight softsuit, but when the seams along her legs and joints began glowing with a soft red light, and her eye burst into crimson incandescence, they realized why she was blithely ignoring all the gunfire: She'd been considerably augmented, partial reconstruction at least.

Holding out her arm, the plates and panels that made up its form unlatched and popped apart at strange angles. Watching in macabre fascination, they couldn't turn away as her arm essentially dismantled itself, sliding back and tucking away to allow the barrels of the minigun concealed within to slide out and lock into place. It was when she held the weapon up and the barrels started to spin that they clapped their hands over their ears.

The screaming sound of metal tearing through the air drowned out the patrol enforcers' yells and gunfire. Firing a short burst into the air, the rounds sparked against the stone ceiling adding the crunch of crumbling rock to the din of the gunfire. The ear-splitting racket cut out a second later, the barrels of her minigun clanking to a stop as she narrowed her eyes at something beyond the two of them.

"Kisuke Urahara!" she shouted, her eye blazing a cherry red through the smoke from her weapon and the dust from the ceiling.

There was utter silence before the faraway answer. "Yes?" Urahara's capacity to sound both hesitant and amused was becoming commonplace.

"We have things to discuss!" she said harshly, stalking past Ichigo and Rukia without a second thought, moving with a sinuous, machined perfection.

Stunned for the moment, the patrol officers had stopped yelling and shooting, perhaps finally realizing that no one had fired at them in the first place. In the ringing silence Ichigo and Rukia could hear a concerned Matsumoto trying to determine if Hitsugaya was alright, followed by muffled shouts that she was suffocating him. Ichigo and Rukia used the brief respite to get their feet back under them and scramble towards Renji and Uryu.

"Cease fire, cease fire!" Toshiro ordered harshly, Rangiku less-than-helpfully pulling him back to his feet. Shuddering mildly, he ran his hands through his shock of unruly white hair and tried to get the image of being smothered to death by Rangiku out of his mind. Straightening his uniform, he turned a cold glower at the listing hulk of metal fuselage he knew the four of them were hiding behind. "Weapons hold until I give the order," he called out to his men, checking the clip on his own weapon before sliding the magazine back into place and taking a position behind a suitable piece of cover as well.

Opposite the detectives and the patrol enforcers, Ichigo risked a glance out at them before slipping back behind the metal plating. "We have a problem," he said to the other three. Putting his back to their impromptu cover and looking over at them, he could almost feel the trio of pointed looks aimed his way.

"Was that you're idea of handling it?" Rukia asked, "Just shoot all the cops? Were you completely out of your mind?"

"Listen, I-" Ichigo tried to answer.

"As much as I may loathe the Central Four-and-Six, these men are just trying to do their jobs," Uryu muttered.

"No, see-" Ichigo began.

"Glasses is right," Renji added, "We start shooting back and things will… escalate. It's one thing to have warrants out for your arrest, believe me, I know. But it's a whole 'nother thing to have 'armed assault on a patrol officer' be one of them. We'd 'disappear' out an airlock before we even made it to lockup, they're just like us man, they take care of their own."

"Would you just _shut up_ already?" Ichigo snapped. "I didn't arm the weapons to shoot the patrol enforcers!"

"You were _bluffing?_ " Rukia demanded.

"No! The weapons system wasn't the only thing I had loaded when I was connected to the ship!"

"What are you saying-" she started before she felt a thrum of vibration through her hand. Splayed out against the ground, she fell silent and stared at her fingers. Just when she thought it might have been her imagination, another deep pulse shivered against her skin. A small pool of oil had collected in a shallow basin just beyond and its surface rippled with shimmering rainbows as another thrum of vibration, closer this time, hummed through the hangar.

"I'm saying the threat assessment system that's polling the hangar's external sensors says: we have bigger problems."

It took her only a moment to discern what he had been trying to say. "No shielding," Rukia whispered, staring at Ichigo's head with a new level of concern.

"What?" Renji asked, perturbed at being left out of the loop. "What is it?"

"We need to get out of here," Rukia asserted, looking slightly pale as another low vibration rippled underfoot.

Detectives Hitsugaya and Matsumoto, peering out from behind their own piece of junked spacecraft, watched the area they knew the four of them were hiding behind with growing concern. "What are they waiting for?" Toshiro muttered to himself.

"Well," Rangiku began, putting a manicured fingertip to her chin. "Their ship seems to be offline again, so they're outmanned, outgunned and outmaneuvered. Maybe they're working out a way to get aboard their ship?" she suggested with a shrug. The motion, combined with her half-unzipped tactical vest, served to totally distract the patrol enforcer next to her, staring down at her chest until Toshiro pointedly ordered him back to attention.

Realizing Rangiku may have had a point, he motioned for two officers to start moving around to cover the twenty meter distance to the black ship's boarding ladder. It would give the jumpy and excitable ones something to do rather than keep pulling the triggers on their weapons, he thought with a sigh. "Alright you four, you're surrounded," he called out, "Drop your weapons and come out, and we can get this whole thing straightened out."

"Hey, Detective Hitsugaya, isn't it?" Rukia called out, pleased that she remembered his name from the bar.

"Detective Toshiro Hitsugaya, of the Tenth Precinct's Colonial Patrol Force, Homicide, and Captain of the patrol cruiser _Hyorin Maru_."

"I have a proposition to make." She swallowed dryly as the oil in the basin rippled again, more forcefully this time.

"You're not in any position to make deals," Toshiro replied. "You're armed and wanted suspects in a dozen different crimes, why would I listen to you?"

"Just hear us out," Rukia answered as she lifted up her empty hands above the edge of the metal plating.

Toshiro patted the air, sending messages to his officers to remain calm and to hold their fire. He looked back to the pair of hands help up and paused a beat before saying, against his better judgment, "I'm listening, feel free to incriminate yourself all you want."

"We all leave this hangar, right now. You give us ten hours," Rukia answered, standing slowly and easing her way out into the open. "Then you can arrest all of us." She silenced Renji and Uryu's complaints with a look, whispering at them, "In ten hours, we'll either have succeeded and it won't matter if we end up in jail, or we'll have failed, in which case… nothing would matter at all."

"I wouldn't make jokes at a time like this," Toshiro remonstrated. "You're asking for ten hours in exchange for what? You're word that you'll turn yourselves in?"

"No, we'll give you all the evidence we've collected in the frame job that set Ichigo and I up for the crimes you're trying to arrest us for."

"I'm not trying to arrest you, I _am_ arresting you."

"And our protection as we leave this hangar," Rukia finished.

Toshiro's brows rose a fraction. "Your protection? You're going to protect us, the patrol enforcers?"

"We have information and tactics that you-"

"Don't tell me this about your alien ship story, is it? What next, are you going to claim time travelers are their accomplices?"

She could see him shaking his head, thinking her ridiculous, and her blood began to simmer. "Detective, I would not make jokes at a time like this." She allowed herself a tiny degree of smug satisfaction as she used his own words back at him.

"I've heard enough of this nonsense," Toshiro shot back, "I've chased you all across this system, there's no way I'm going to let you go now that I have you, not without a good reason."

Kisuke Urahara, standing calmly off Hitsugaya's shoulder, gave the young homicide detective quite a start as he removed his hat from head and examined the brim with long, slender fingers. Unperturbed by the weapon Toshiro pointed at him, his only movement was to flick his eyes to the pool of coolant gathered at the top of an old storage cylinder. To the tiny ripples that shivered across its surface. "Be careful what you wish for, Detective." Kisuke said evenly.

"There you are, slippery little snake," Commander Soi-Fon said triumphantly, spying Urahara from the top of a nearby junk heap she'd climbed. With a smirk, she moved her minigun arm to match the thin red laser line, glowing in the dusty air, that had traveled from her eye and stopped over Kisuke's chest. "What? No witty comments?"

"In about thirty seconds, there won't be air to make any," Yoruichi answered instead, stepping out of the shadows to stand at Urahara's side. Handing him a softsuit helmet, she kissed him lightly on the cheek and whispered something in his ear, her lips curved in a cat-like smile.

"Thank you my dear, impeccable timing as always," he replied with a disarming ease that seemed out of place amid all the drawn weapons and tense emotions.

"Princess Yoruichi!" Soi-Fon sputtered, careful not to aim her weapon at Yoruichi and looking on the verge of stamping her bionic foot. "I must protest! I was sent to find you and bring y-"

Her words were lost as the sudden, deafening sound of heavy collision rolled over them, pounding in their ears and leaping their hearts into their throats. The thunderous impact that shook entire hangar, quaking the ground and rattling every scrap heap around them. Heavy and massive, the sound didn't echo so much as _fill_ the chamber, and as it faded to silence it left a ringing in their ears and a reverberation in their bones.

While Soi-Fon's balance was cybernetically perfect and she remained poised atop her scrap heap, the stiff skin of her face was unused to expressions of abject shock. "Wha-what was that?"

Addressing Toshiro, Kisuke answered as he wiggled a finger in his ear, "I believe it was your good reason, Detective." To those who knew him, the absence of his usual jovial timbre hinted at the severity of the situation.

Scattered, anxious muttering and the sound of Urahara fitting the helmet on over his head filled the silence that followed. Toshiro, his mouth open to speak, turned to Urahara and as the helmet seal closed with a final snap, another deafening collision shook the very ground beneath his feet.

"The ship-lock gate!" someone called out, and all eyes swept to the far end of the hangar.

And then the decompression warning klaxons began to wail.

Bleeding into the darkness at the far end of the hangar, around the edges of the massive main ship-lock door, bright light was shining in and sending long spears of white through the dusty air. The red strobes began flashing their decompression warnings around the perimeter of the hangar as the few overhead lights began going out, sparks and cracks raining down from above. Another heavy, thudding impact wrenched the door from its tracks at one end, spilling in even more blinding sunslight, and through the gap, appearing only for a moment, flashed a dark shadow. A second was all they had before it moved into the dark reaches of the far ends of the hangar, but that was enough to see it's massive, jagged bulk and serpentine, unnatural grace.

His gun at the ready and his eyes scanning the far side of the hangar, Detective Hitsugaya spoke over his shoulder towards Ichigo and the others. "That… That thing was what you were talking about?"

"No." Ichigo stepped up in line with the detective. The air, whipped into to gusts as it rushed out the broken ship-lock gate, was getting progressively thinner, pitching the klaxon alarm to a higher tone.

"That's one of the little ones," Rukia finished, moving in line as well. Uryu and Renji followed suit, both raising their weapons, barrels pointed over the mounds of strewn metal at the darkness beyond.

"We're facing the suns out there for another few minutes, which means it came down in the light," Urahara mentioned, fiddling with his gloves. "Such extreme exposure would normally put one of them on its last legs, so to speak, but with all this food," he held his hands out to all the junked spacecraft, "We might be facing a more serious threat."

"They eat metal?" Hitsugaya asked, somewhat uncertain.

"The actual process is closer to a refinery, but yes, essentially they eat metal," Urahara answered. "But here, see for yourself."

Cresting one of the larger, more jagged piles of stripped down spacecraft hulls, it came. Moving with a serpentine grace on unnaturally jointed legs, it's clawed feet clenched into the debris as it turned its featureless, shield of a head towards them. As large as any of the ships in the hangar, it was gigantic in comparison to any of the humans and the silvery plates that covered its body were dripping with melted metal, adding a unreal sheen to it as the shafts of light played across its body.

"Uh, Captain?" Rangiku asked, discreetly pointing towards where the ship-lock gate had been partially torn off, out of which all the air in the hangar was currently escaping. Beyond, all was fiery red and orange, the light of the suns igniting the oxygen as if funneled out onto the scorched, blasted surface of Pendulum.

"Hold positions," Hitsugaya ordered, trying to bolster his unnerved men and women.

The Hollow, backlit by the inferno beyond the gate, cut an impressively terrifying visage as it crept down towards them, the whole of it a concert of alien motion as it propelled itself forward. Tipping its massive plated head back, it split into jaws upon jaws that spread open wide, pivoting dozens of rows of chainsaw-like teeth into place. It roared, the sound blood-curdling in the thinning air and its foul breath stinking of machinery oil and decay even at this distance. Its mouth opening wider, the gears and chains within screeched to life.

Easily scaling down the slope of piled high metal, its jaws flexing and snapping, the Hollow turned its massive head to let a trio of claw tipped tentacles snake out at one of skeletons of disassembled spacecraft. The massive Hollow dwarfed the remains of the large ship as it was dragged back up into its mouth, clamping down on it to let its chainsaw teeth go to work grinding and tearing at it with terrible efficiency. Shredded pieces falling from its maw, the Hollow turned back towards them, growling with the sound of squealing, tearing metal.

"Magnificent," Urahara whispered appreciatively.

Screams of alarm from several of the officers rang out as they drew back away from the horrid monstrosity. A single crack of gunfire split the air, the weapon of Detective Toshiro Hitsugaya barking back in response to the Hollow's thundering bellow. Smoke drifting from the barrel, Toshiro stepped forward and re-centered his gun, mouth set firm and his finger tight on the trigger. "Open fire."

The remaining air was immediately filled with the staccato bursts of gunfire as the patrol officers began squeezing off rounds down the length of the hangar at the huge Hollow. Uryu and Renji took positions on the firing line next to Toshiro, adding their own bursts of gunfire to the assault. The sparks of bullets glancing off metal peppered the area around the Hollow and across its body, the clangs and zings of ricochets tinny in the thin air. The gunfire dwindled as their magazines ran empty, and as the gun smoke cleared they could see that if any of the rounds had a damaging effect, it wasn't apparent. More perplexed than injured, the Hollow drew up, stringy red muscle tissue sliding around beneath its heavy silver plates, and cocked its massive head at them.

"I think you're going to need a bigger gun, Toshiro," Ichigo commented.

"That's 'Detective Hitsugaya' to you," Toshiro answered, calmly slipping a softsuit helmet over his head and sealing it to his collar. Behind him, the other patrol officers were donning masks and helmets as well, the air in the hangar now preciously thin.

Soi-Fon, barely inconvenienced by the growing vacuum, walked calmly to the line and leveled her forearm minigun at the approaching Hollow. "Allow me," she said, her voice cold through their aural implants, as she spun up the barrels. The whirring reached a quick crescendo before the remaining air was split by the rolling thunder of hundreds of rounds, ripping across the hangar and tearing at the Hollow's plated armor. Gouts of black ichor splattered across the armor and fell to the floor as the stream of bullets cracked and cratered its metal skin, digging deep into sinewy flesh.

Bullet casings showered to the ground as the spinning tips of the barrels began to glow the same cherry red as Soi-Fon's eye, but the sound of her continuous gunfire and high velocity machinery slipped oddly away, falling down to a whisper before being snuffed out completely. The smile of grim satisfaction faltered as Soi-Fon looked from the Hollow to her silent weapon, the barrels spinning but no longer firing a stream of bullets. "It isn't designed to work in a vacuum," Soi-Fon grumbled, her lips and mouth moving in the airless hangar but her voice carrying through to their aural implants.

The ground vibrated again beneath their feet, drawing their attention back to the Hollow. It had drawn back, rearing up like some enormous beast and hunching its shoulders to protect its head. Ragged holes had been punched through the silvery metal plating across its forelegs and shoulders while slimy black blood oozed from the bullet wounds.

Dropping down from its perch to the hangar floor, the crash they expected never came, the hangar now as airless and silent as the depths of space, but the ground shook as landed. Its head low to the ground and jaws snapping in pain and fury, its huge, barbed claws carved deep furrows through the durocrete as if to charge, but it held its ground. Instead, the damaged plates on either shoulder split and hinged open, greasy muscle and stained metal moving disquietingly within. The Hollow tamped down its feet, clenching into the surface as sparks of yellow flashed within the recesses it had revealed.

"Run!" Rukia yelled, turning to flee with Renji, Uryu and Ichigo hot on her heels. She knew what was coming, what those shifting plates of armored metal meant.

Deciding discretion to be the better part of valor, both Toshiro and Rangiku began backing away from the firing line, the other patrol officers having already broken ranks and gone scrambling for cover. The order to fall back was halfway out of the young detective's mouth when the sparks of light within its shoulders flared brightly in the dim hangar. Without warning, two brilliant yellow beams split through the darkness, blinding, harsh and utterly silent. The light raked across the ground to touch a junked section of hull plating that some of his officers, young ones fresh from the academy, had taken shelter behind.

In a moment they were gone. They didn't even have time to scream. Somewhat anticlimactically, the light flickered and died and all that was left was a long scorch mark on the durocrete and a piece of blackened wreckage, melted to slag.

The lone exception to the frantic search for cover, Toshiro stood unmoving and stared at where his officers had been. Another vibration beneath his feet diverted his attention and he calmly turned his gaze down the hangar. The whispered rumors of a dark, deadly menace out there in black, wild speculations that he had so casually disregarded, were all true. And three of his men had paid it with their lives.

Rukia, holding an emergency air supply system to her face, dashed up next to where Ichigo was hidden behind one of the _Zangetsu's_ landing gear. "We need to get that thing out of here," she said to him over their local comm, her voice clear but urgent. "It's eating to power its energy weapons and there's too much food here," she pointed out, waving to all the heaps of old spacecraft, "It's going to become unstoppable."

Nodding, Ichigo opened a public comm to the detectives as he turned back to Toshiro. The young man remained standing in the open, an unreadable expression on his face as he stared at the Hollow, the tightness with which he gripped his weapon being his only visible indicator of emotion.

The Hollow, visibly weakened for the moment, folded its shoulder plating back up and took an unsteady step as it uncoiled its tentacles to latch onto several pieces of scrap metal. All but ignoring the tiny humans peering out at it from a few hundred meters away, it greedily began to devour the hulks of junked spacecraft. Gulping down the shredded metal, it backed up towards the torn hangar door, shifting its head around and pacing a few steps back and forth. Preoccupied with the heaps of available metal around it, it only flicked its attention towards the patrol enforcers when they tried moving from their cover, sending them scuttling back to further hiding places.

"Why isn't it coming after us?" Rangiku asked, looking next to her at Toshiro. The quiver in her voice as she looked uncertainly at the Hollow down the length of the Hangar, belied her calm composure. Taking a breath inside her softsuit helmet, she looked again at her calculating captain as she steadied her hands around her weapon.

Through clenched teeth Toshiro replied, "Why should it, it can take all the time it wants. We're obviously not a threat."

Rukia, leaning out to catch a glance at the Hollow, furrowed her thin brows and shifted back behind cover. Her breath fogged the clear faceplate of the air mask as she huffed in thought. "He's right but that's not all, it's guarding the exit," she reasoned, looking troubled.

Catching her expression, Uryu peeked as well, mentioning, "I've never known a Hollow to use such a tactic either."

Ignoring the conversation regarding atypical Hollow behavior and its myriad implications, Ichigo narrowed his eyes behind the visor of his mask as he looked from his ship to the broken ship-lock gate. "Only one way out, and the Hollow is standing between us and it," Ichigo muttered. "Hey, detectives," Ichigo interjected, drawing their attention as he moved away from Rukia and towards them.

"What's he doing?" Renji muttered to Rukia, watching him walking calmly out in the open, towards the two detectives.

"Being Ichigo," Rukia replied. The tone of her voice was somewhere between exasperation and appreciation. To anyone else, the scenario would have been simple: either get in your ship and escape, or help out those in need. However, by now she knew to Ichigo it would have been even simpler: help.

Stopping before Toshiro, his dark mask in place and the fiery light glowing dully across the armored panels of his flight suit, Ichigo spoke again into is comm. "Get back to your shuttle when the way is clear. We'll cover you," he promised.

Immediately wary, Toshiro's brows drew down at Ichigo but he couldn't hold it, distracted as he was by the monstrous form of the Hollow across the hangar eating another chunk of spacecraft frame. "You're still under arrest, but that thing just killed three of my men, Kurosaki. My priorities have changed."

"Does that mean we get that ten hours?"

"It means we can't do anything planetside. Spaced, back in my ship… we'll have to see how it turns out for you." Toshiro's gaze flicked back to the Hollow, "Can you fly as good as people say you can?"

Ichigo scoffed. "Better."

"I've heard bold words like that before, you sure you can back them up?" Toshiro asked pointedly.

"I'll have to," Ichigo shrugged, "Or we'll all dead." He studied Toshiro's face through the visor of his helmet, the detective's gaze alternating between the Hollow, his men, and quartet of Uryu, Renji, Rukia and himself standing their ground but ready to move up the boarding steps of the long black ship.

Coming to a decision Toshiro finished with, "At least you know what's at stake." Offering Ichigo a single, terse nod of his head in thanks before he turned on his heel and opened a comm to the other patrol officers. "Be ready to fall back to the shuttle," he ordered, heading for the rear airlock they had come through. "We don't have the firepower to engage that thing down here." He had a responsibility to uphold; whatever the prior situation was, that creature was a clear and present danger to the system far beyond four wanted criminals.

"Get aboard," Ichigo said, turning to the other three and waving to the boarding steps leading into the great, black ship, "We've got work to do." With a flicker of thought Ichigo sent the neural command to restart the main engines, set proper power levels, and begin reinitializing standard systems. Not really expecting an immediate return status, he was somewhat surprised when the monitors across the ship quickly informed him that he had green lights across the board.

Uryu and Renji disappeared into the ship just as Rukia halted on the first step and turned to face Ichigo. "What do you think Urahara meant when he said the tactical and navigation systems were a little unorthodox?" When it came to combat flying, she didn't like surprises.

"I guess we'll have to see-" Ichigo trailed off at the look on Rukia's face, her eyes staring wide over his shoulder. Spinning around, he turned his masked face back at Hollow. "Oh shit."

As it powered up, the ship had caught the Hollow's attention. Ichigo had a clear view of the terrible efficiency of it as it moved to come closer, barring its huge, chainsaw filled mouth and sinking its metallic talons into the ground. Far different and more advanced than the one they had seen on Junrinan Two, whose planetside form had been a mishmash of whatever appendages it could muster, this one moved with a sinuous, reptilian grace, muscles working below its plated skin in an alien, unnatural interplay. A long, barbed tail lashed behind it as it crested a tall spire of exposed structure-work, its massive head aimed down at them.

For a moment it appeared ready to leap down upon the back of the _Zangetsu_ , until a rocket sliced across the stillness of the hangar and slammed into the side of the Hollow's head with a bright yellow flash. Zipping overhead, a fully repaired _Sparrow Bee_ banked low beneath the ceiling of the hangar, the light from her engine wash and brightly glowing I-Grav emitters throwing craggy shadows out from the heaps of junk metal.

Together, Ichigo and Rukia watched the Hollow teeter precariously on its perch, whipping its head around to its new foe just as Yoruichi, sitting in the pilot's seat of the tiny ship's open canopy, brought it around again. Hovering in place, another rocket soared out from the ship, this time blowing apart the junk heap the Hollow had scaled. Silently, the Hollow lost its footing and tumbled down among the discarded hull plating and dismantled bulkhead structure, giving them a clear view of Soi-Fon, standing beside Yoruichi in the open cockpit and holding a large shoulder-style rocket launcher.

A comm notice appeared in his vision with Urahara's security token attached to it as the Hollow went crashing down to the ground, the scaffolding and girderwork collapsing on top of it. The _Sparrow Bee_ set down smoothly as Kisuke appeared, stepping out from where he had been nonchalantly leaning in the shadows of an eave of old hull plating.

"From what I've seen, I'm confident that you know what to do with that new ship of yours," Urahara said, moving up next to the open canopy. "But _how_ you do it is going to have to change."

Puzzled, Ichigo remained silent as Kisuke vaulted up into the cockpit of the _Sparrow Bee_ with the ease of years of practice, as if hopping into fighter ships was something he was well versed at, or used to be.

Urahara settled in next to Yoruichi, earning a look from Soi-Fon that would have been venomous if not for her stiff, cyborg skin, and kept his eyes turned towards the rubble heap from which the Hollow was still working to extricate itself from. "You and Rukia make a great team, better than I had anticipated, but up until now you're relied only on each other. From here on out, in a ship like that, something tells me that you won't get much further without a full crew." The Hollow wrested its head free of the tangle of metal struts and beams, tearing apart the metal it could and simply eating what it couldn't. Its upper torso coming free, it redoubled its efforts and thrashed about, flexing its jaws and wrenching apart the metal with its talons.

"That won't hold it for long, get moving Ichigo!" Yoruichi commanded, the authoritarian edge in her voice cutting through their momentary stupor. Before he knew it, Ichigo found himself vaulting up the steps behind Rukia in a mad dash to the bridge.

The two of them crested the landing of the small loading bay, turned and hauled themselves through the short corridor that apparently led to the bridge. No time to take in the design aesthetics, the only impression they had of the interior was of cool, gray metal bulkheads, exposed rivets and a bare, focused _purpose_. Every part of the ship was designed to do one thing, and do it extremely well. That feeling carried over as they caught up to Renji and Uryu, staring out as they stood in the doorframe of the bridge.

Laid out long and lean, the bridge deck comprised nearly the entire front portion of the craft. Front-rear navigation and tactical stations dominated the front, while two more side-by-side stations took up the rear. The canopy overhead had been blacked out by the nanoweave sleeve that covered the skin of the ship, leaving the interior to be lit by a soft, unfamiliar type of glow. Like the rest of the ship, space was at a premium across the bridge, more cramped with consoles than other, roomier bridges they'd been on before. Looking closer at those consoles, Rukia and Ichigo realized what had stopped Renji and Uryu short at the door.

"This is not what I expected when Urahara said 'unconventional'," Ichigo noted.

The glow came from display screens, easily a dozen of them, embedded in the control panels and consoles arrayed around and above each station. Apparently requiring no link connection at all, each of them shined simple, monochrome output display of various systems and resource levels. The running lights flickered on and they stood there, speechless.

Every control on every panel at every console was a physical, _mechanical_ toggle switch, knob, dial, slider, selector or button. There were no holo-panels anywhere.

"How old did he say this ship was?" Renji muttered to Uryu.

Renji may have had a point, Ichigo thought, but all the same, the layout of the switch plates and screens, the dedicated keyboards and real needle-and-meter pressure and temperature gauges harkened back to a time when the concepts of design and efficiency meant different things. It was the polar opposite of a ship like Byakuya's limousine, whose stark white featurelessness and sculpted curvature carried the eye across like a work of art. Rather, the bare plating of the gunmetal bulkheads and flat planes of the control-covered consoles combined to appeal to him in an oddly familiar way. There was form that existed within the function.

It was when he caught sight of the navigation station that he began to understand another, more important line of reasoning behind the total absence of holo-panels on the bridge. Though more control consoles were arrayed around it, it none-the-less bore a striking resemblance to the saddle and handlebars of his classic hovercycle back on Karakura station, complete with twist-throttle, foot peg controls and center mounted screen display. It even had the number '15' stitched into the fabric of the seat.

"I know this may sound like a dumb question, but why is everything on the bridge a… a thing?" Renji asked, tapping against a gauge and watching the needle quiver.

"Because," Ichigo realized, "No matter what, they won't stop functioning from link interference."

"Are you certain about this, Kurosaki?" Uryu asked skeptically.

"Don't have that luxury," Ichigo replied, pushing past them. Ducking his way between the two rear stations and down the edgewalk to the side of the tactical station, he swung his leg over pilot's saddle and sat down, taking in the controls as the restraint system clipped into the catches on his thighs. Rubbing his fingers together and glancing over the panels around him, he felt his confidence returning. He couldn't blame them for feeling out of their element; Renji was used to flying his 'appropriated' ex-patrol ship and Ishida could run the entire _QNC Longbow_ from the custom console he had wired together. Both of them had probably used holo-panel controls their entire lives, though they'd be loathe to admit they had anything in common. Ichigo, however, felt immediately at home behind the banks of gleaming chrome toggles and knurled selector knobs. After flying the _Masaki_ for so long, a ship his father would never change and that sometimes seemed a hundred years old, the systems and controls on this ship felt distinctly familiar.

"Uh, hey Ichigo," Renji said, rubbing at the back of his head as his eyes flicked up to the black canopy. "But how are you going to fly this thing if you can't see?"

It was a good question but Ichigo didn't want to admit it out loud. He was spared from answering as he heard Rukia slip into the tactical station behind him, her breath hitching as her eyes settled on one section of her consoles. "I can't believe he got this to work…"

"According to the documentation," Uryu said, scrolling through a readout glowing on the lenses of his glasses, "The nanoweave defense system controls are on the engineering station."

"Oh," Renji said, realizing where he was sitting. "This must be it," he said, adjusting a few control. The canopy and viewports above and around them, which had previously been a flat, lightless black, shifted to clear, giving them an excellent view out the front of the ship where the Hollow's huge, open mouth was spread. Looming closer to the ship, the mouth seemed ready to snap closed around them, chainsaw jaws working at angles everywhere they looked.

A chorus of distinctly non-masculine screams erupted across the bridge as the Hollow's metallic, clawed tentacles came writhing forth, the cruel tips primed and ready to pierce through the clear canopy. Muffled bursts sounded through the ship and the tentacles were all blasted away, the Hollow knocked back as huge showers of yellow sparks hit it across the mouth. Tipping backwards, the Hollow scrambled across the junkyard piles to get some distance between it and the ship as Uryu, Renji and Ichigo glanced at over Rukia.

Wearing the tactical station's thick visor over her eyes, Rukia's lips were set in a firm line as she studied the Hollow skittering away. Keeping her gaze locked on target, the autocannon turrets smoothly tracking her line of sight, she reached out to switch the active loadout to bigger ordinance. With a flick of her fingers, the main railguns came online as the autocannons rolled back into their housings, and the lateral missile bay doors retracted as Rukia sat back and raised her hands to ready positions.

Rather than softsuit gloves, her hands were sheathed in ship's firing control system; thick, sensor-fitted gauntlets tethered to her console by hardwire cables. With a flex of her gloved fingers, she charged the forward railgun capacitors and armed her missile warheads, letting the glove's weapon status indicators blaze into brilliant red light.

"We are weapons hot," she announced, bathed by the crimson light from her gloves. Realizing something, she looked back at them quickly, asking, "Did you guys just scream like a bunch of little girls?"

"Nope."

"Nu-uh."

"Nonsense."

With a disbelieving curve to her lips she slid the opaque visor slid back down over her eyes and the targeting and trajectory displays flickered into place. Overlaying the visor display with the shortrange sensors and zeroing back in on her target, she gave Ichigo the order she knew he was eager to hear. "Get this thing off the ground."

"Sit down, strap in, and shut up," Ichigo said with a smirk, wrapping his fingers around the handles of the flight control system. With satisfying little clacks, he thumbed the controls to get the attitude control surfaces powered up, nudging up the I-Grav output with a tap of his toe. Gently twisting the throttle, Ichigo eased the ship up off its landing gear to hover in place above the debris covered ground but below the roof of the hangar. Engines purring through the deck plating, Ichigo swung the nose of the ship around towards where the Hollow had gone, saying, "We have liftoff."

Tightening his hands on the handles, hardwire leads clicked into the sockets along the top of his hands as his mask slid back down into place. Reconnecting his neural link to the ship and loading up the nav computer, he was surprised to find another presence alongside his own, sharing the resource session. Immediately recognizable, Rukia's neural connection through the ship held the same frosty bite and fiery smolder as it did through their feelink, but being piped through the active weapon system channels brought the sensation to an all new level.

"The link manager is a neural net," she realized after their shared moment of surprise. Once again, the sheer pressure of his presence, so raw, unrefined, and brimming with the untapped power of the ship's massive engines, set her mind buzzing through the link manager. Their links shared a brief but reassuring caress as they set up a cross-panel protocol exchange, the action sending that warm electric tingle down both their spines. Not a moment too soon too, as two more presences unfolded in the running session, the first a whip-crack passion tempered by steely resolve, and the other a sterile but powerful computational engine.

"Neural net huh?" Renji said as he too established a connection and loaded up his systems. "Why'd they stop using those again?"

"Because not everyone has the high sync ratio required to use it," Rukia said, coming to the same realization as Ichigo.

"Ninety-five percent or better," Ichigo added, tossing a look towards Rukia. So that was why Urahara had been so interested in their shared sync ratios. Seeing her nod was all the confirmation he needed.

"Outdated link manager on an untested ship with an experimental defensive system flying a combat encounter in an _enclosed space_ against a target of unknown capabilities," he muttered, keeping the reactors tamped down so Ichigo could manage the engines better so low to the ground. He flicked his eyes up to the glance the orange-headed pilot shot back at him, cracking his fingers and saying with a smirk, "Sounds like fun."

"All systems online, and I've got sensors running in tandem mode over the tightbeam to the _Sparrow Bee_ ," Uryu said, his hands busily adjusting controls across his boards. "We're as ready as we're going to be."

Ichigo could feel the cold drop of adrenalin pooling in his stomach as he caught flashes of the Hollow's back as it slipped between the darkened crags of piled wreckage across the hangar. Off to his side through one of the viewports he could see the silhouettes of the patrol force members hidden down among the piles of plating and ship structure, waiting for their opportunity to escape out the airlock across the hangar.

They were counting on him. He had made a promise to Toshiro to see them safely back to their ship and the weight of that responsibility threw into focus the enormity of their overall task. It wasn't just one Hollow and one ship full of humans, it was every ship, every planet and moon, every colony and station and outpost and platform. He could see them in his mind's eye, destroyed in an instant, burning and blasted to nothingness. The entire system wiped out, an enormous and dark shape drifting slowly in the background. His vision darkening as well, horrid details across the mothership came into focus, an enormous and ancient leviathan of unfathomable power. His gut clenched uncomfortably as flashes of the places he'd been flicked by, reimagining them as destroyed wrecks, smoking craters and whole planets turned to ash and melted glass. Everyone he knew, his friends, his family, even his enemies. Dead.

All at the hand of the dreadnought slipping through the dark, bearing down on them even now and consumed with a singular purpose. And the only thing standing in its way was this ship. A sinister, mocking laughter flitted about the back of his mind for an instant before Ichigo silenced it. His vision returned to normal as he thoughts returned to Rukia, her presence in the neural net the equivalent of standing back-to-back with him. The image of her seated at the station behind him, calm and in control, every bit the focused and unyielding soldier, all served to steady his nerves and return his confidence, his strength.

Turning his attention back to the task at hand, he stared out at the dark shape of the Hollow as it crept among the heaps of scrapped metal. Using the shadows and piles as cover, it remained near the torn ship-lock gate, preventing the patrol enforcers from moving closer and trying to keep them all trapped inside the hangar. "Let's get that door open, time to take out the trash," Ichigo said, sliding the long, black ship over to bring the huge, broken ship-lock gate in line with their weapons.

"Priming forward railguns," Rukia said, setting her sights on where the door was still connected to the housing. Designed to withstand the pressure differentials of full atmosphere and the vacuum of space, and big enough to permit ships as large as cruisers through it, the blastdoor on a ship-lock gate was a massive, reinforced piece of machinery. Hovever, Rukia was confident it would be no match for the high caliber, precision fired railgun slugs she was about to hit it with, and was just tightening her fingers on the firing control when the ship lurched beneath her feet, throwing off her aim and sending her hard into the restraints of her seat. "What the-"

A huge section of stripped down hull plating went sailing past the canopy, tumbling end over end, as Ichigo fishtailed the powerful ship out of the way. "It's throwing things at us," Ichigo said, teeth clenched as his hands and feet adjusted the controls. Evading the jagged metal projectiles, staying clear of the ceiling and sliding between the piles of scrapped spaceships required careful attention but he still managed to catch sight of the _Sparrow Bee_ angling around in their direction. For a fraction of a second he could see through their canopy, Yoruichi at the pilot's station wearing a confident smirk as she zipped past the nose of his ship in a maneuver intentionally similar to the one he had performed in the _Red Princess_.

To his credit, Ichigo didn't flinch as the smaller ship went skipping over the top of the long black warship, but it was the tow cable out the rear of the _Sparrow Bee_ that had him confused. Following it's curving path, his eyes grew wide as he swerved again, cursing as powerful engines roared behind them, sending them hurtling out of the way. The tow cable had been attached to a large, wicked looking chunk of scraped structure-work which went whistling through the space they had just vacated.

"What… was that?" Rukia asked.

"They call it a wrecking ball," Uryu said, his eyes following the little ship. "The colonial navy's ban on ship-board weaponry has led to some unorthodox developments."

"Unorthodox?" Rukia gaped, nearly disbelieving what she was seeing. The little ship skimmed around the edge of the metal ribs of a gutted spaceship, bearing down on the Hollow near the door. Surging out of the cover of darkness to meet its attacker, the Hollow tore across the hangar floor, mouth wide open, curved claws ready to pounce, only to realize it had fallen into a trap. The _Sparrow Bee_ fired its booster jets in a brief, bright flash, popping it upwards as it braked hard and detached its tow cable. Beneath it went the huge, jagged hunk of metal, inertia carrying right into the Hollow's path.

Scrambling to get out of the way in time, the Hollow didn't see the tow cable whipping about behind the wrecking ball as it frayed into a dozen, thinner cables. Managing to slip barely to the side of the heavy metal projectile, the Hollow escaped a direct hit but was summarily wrapped up in several of the flying cables, lashing across its metal skin and cinching tight. The Hollow was carried off its feet as the wrecking ball bounced silently off the hangar ground, the impact setting it spinning, and went crashing into the far wall, dragging the Hollow behind it. As if to add insult to injury, the impact shook loose a heaped pile of debris, setting it sliding down atop the wrapped up, thrashing Hollow.

"But effective," Rukia had to admit after a moment.

"Detective Hitsugaya, this is…" Uryu said over a comm channel, his mouth curling in mild distaste, "The _Zangetsu._ Target has been temporarily neutralized. They way to the airlock is clear, get your people out as quickly as possible."

"Acknowledged, _Zangetsu._ We're withdrawing now."

Easing the ship into a stationary hover again, protectively near the small, undamaged airlock near the torn ship-lock gate, Ichigo watched the tiny figures of the patrol force members moving below him. Though he had no personal way to gauge their expertise, it certainly appeared they were moving as a disciplined unit and were just making it to the airlock when movement ahead of him demanded his attention. Wrenching itself free from the scrap metal and coiled cables, the Hollow was clawing its way back out of the rubble, its huge mouth snapping as it dug its powerful, clawed arms and legs fought for purchase. "Can't fire on the door until the patrol members are clear," Ichigo pointed out, hearing Rukia power up her weapons again.

"Who said anything about the door this time?" Rukia shifted her aim and dropped her reticles right over the Hollow as it came loose. Sucking up the metal cables, it turned its head towards them just as she activated the firing control. Muffled cracks of capacitors dumping their charges sounded across the bridge, propelling a slug of solid tungsten to supersonic speeds aimed directly at the Hollow. An explosion of flying metal debris and billowing clouds of powered stone obscured the impact area, and lifting her visor, Rukia leaned forward looking for any sign she'd hit her target. The smoke cleared and she could see her shots had punched through the piles of metal plating and left huge craters in the stone wall of the hangar. "Where-"

"Above us!" Uryu warned, his sensors feeding the threat assessment system, flashing red to alert of an inbound hostile.

Skittering across the uneven ceiling of the hangar and weaving in between the old, darkened hanging lights, the Hollow came rushing towards them. Pulling on the controls, Ichigo backpedaled the ship away just as it came leaping down, twisting in midair, claws and tentacles outstretched. Thinking he had veered back far enough to keep them safe, Ichigo and the others on the bridge realized they weren't the only ones who could set a trap. The plates across its shoulders were already retracted and sparks of yellow light burst from their depths.

No time to turn aside, Ichigo had a front row seat as the Hollow bent down and fired its laser canons. Expecting the worst, he watched everything around him go suddenly dark, pausing a moment as he realized the canopy had blacked out again.

"Hull integrity is holding, thermal tank temp climbing to one percent above base," Renji drawled, "I guess the energy weapon defense system works."

Ichigo knew he didn't have time to bother with the canopy, his only other option was something not strictly recommended without specialized hardware. Pulling up the shortrange sensor system in his neural link, he activated its holo-mode and dumped the output directly to his ocular implants. His vision suddenly swam with a dizzying overlay as rendered data fought with his eye's natural vision and he was thankful the canopy was still dark. He cut the display resolution down to the most basic level and when he looked again, the ship and surrounding hangar, scrap piles and hanging lights were all drawn with simple, glowing grid lines. The painful pins and needles sensation returned in full force as he saw the Hollow, drawn in bright red and stalking towards them with the slow, methodical gait of a hunting predator, confident it had wounded and cornered its prey.

Taxing his new link was not something he wanted to do for long, and his head was beginning to pound from the size of the datastream he had running through his ocular implants even at the lowest resolution, so he did the only thing that seemed obvious: he memorized his surroundings. Committing to memory the positions of the nearby scrap heaps and measuring the distance from the floor to the ceiling, Ichigo turned off the sensor display except for the red image of the Hollow as it paused, perplexed.

The ship had slid backwards and off center from the Hollow, and as Ichigo tried to right their course to bring the forward guns back in line, the Hollow bolted. Dashing to the side, long, strangely jointed legs loping along, it pounded its way over the durocrete and weaved among the towering piles of scrap. Twisting the throttle and working the controls, Ichigo sent the heavy, massive ship into quick pursuit. Realizing he was fighting against the ship, trying to balance the sheer size of it with how agile he needed it to move, Ichigo tried a different tactic. This wasn't a small interceptor and it wasn't a heavy cruiser, this gunship was something new and needed to flown in a different way. Beginning to interpret what the ship was telling him through the vibrations of the controls and shifts of the I-Grav surfaces, Ichigo bent lower to the controls and urged the ship on faster.

"We're flying blind here!" Renji yelled out, working on the canopy controls. There was still too much absorbed heat to release the sleeve and he could tell they had poured on the speed, dipping and weaving as they raced down the length of the hangar.

"Can't get a solid lock, Ichigo," Rukia said, ignoring Renji. Lip bit between her teeth, her reticles kept ghosting across the Hollow as it sprinted along, bounding from one outcropping of metal wreckage to another. She didn't have time to wonder at how exactly Ichigo was managing to avoid all the spires of old spacecraft, tipping the ship on its side and slicing past a heap of wreckage as he banked to stay on target. She was only thankful that he could.

Ichigo came out of the bank near the far end of the hangar, having chased the Hollow out to the darkened recesses of enormous structure, and proceeded to slam on the braking thrusters. Tail dipping dangerously close to the ground, Ichigo brought the ship to a screeching halt as he scanned all around for a sign of the red-outined target. Bringing back up the sensor display in his ocular implants, the green grid appeared once again around him, accompanied by the swift jolt of pain through his head that he resolutely ignored, trying to find where their target could have gone.

A shift in the debris caught his attention. Peering close at the green-rendered scrap pile, Ichigo didn't see the Hollow creeping over the opposite pile until it was too late. Cursing, Ichigo hammer the controls to swerve aside but it was too late, the Hollow landing heavily atop the _Zangetsu_ , jointed limbs and claws trying to dig into the frictionless skin of the black ship. A chorus of yells broke out across the bridge: the target's too close, the sensors are blinded, there's not enough power to keep them from being driven into the ground.

Ichigo ignored all that useless noise as the canopy finally shifted back to clear. Staring up at the Hollow's huge, shield of a face bent down and looking back at them, they went silent and Ichigo pushed the mask of his helmet up off his face. His vision swirling with murky darkness, he watched the Hollow pause for a moment and he knew, on one level or another, that he was staring at it in the eye. "Get off my ship."

The Hollow reared back to plunge through the canopy but nearly lost its grip as the ship beneath it shot upwards, engines flaring brightly in the darkness. Trying to stay in position to strike as it was pushed higher, the Hollow failed to register the full extent of the danger it was in until it was too late. With a jarring impact, the Hollow was crushed between the stone ceiling of the hangar and the reinforced hull of the gunship.

The squeal of stressed metal echoed across the bridge as Ichigo pressed the Hollow hard into the ceiling before cutting the I-Grav down to a low ripple. The ship dropped amid falling rocks and dust, only a few marks marring its black skin as the stunned Hollow slid off to fall heavily to the ground.

"You'll scratch the paint," Ichigo muttered, slamming his mask back down over his face and gunning his engines. Out the canopy, sprawled across the durocrete, the Hollow rose on shaky limbs. Its sleek silver skin was caked with rock dust and had splintered with cracks, red muscle and black blood visible between. Settling the ship down low, he pointed the bladed tip of the ship's nose at the Hollow and heard Rukia say the second best words he could imagine her saying.

"Target locked." There was steel in her voice as she narrowed her sights on her target. Fingers clenched in her interface glove, she smoothly exhaled, cleared her mind, and pulled the firing control. With no air outside the ship to carry sound, the only thing they heard were the muffled vibrations of the booster charges igniting, sending the four-inch tungsten alloy slugs out of their firing chambers to be caught by the Lorentz force created by millions of amperes of current running through the rails, hurling it down the barrels at thousands of meters per second.

At that velocity and at this range, there was no possible way for the Hollow to evade the attack, and Rukia pushed her display visor up to her brow just in time to see the Hollow tumbling backwards away from them, splinters of its metal skin flying off and black, ichorous blood spraying all over the ground.

Ichigo leaned back from the flight controls, looking over his shoulder at Renji and Uryu. "Damage report?"

"Minor stress to the sectional trusses, some damage to the external plating. Hull integrity still at one hundred percent though," Renji said, somewhat impressed the ship could take an impact like that and simply shake it off.

"Alright," Ichigo said, turning back around and bringing the hangar layout up on one of his screens. "Let's get that door op-" he was stopped by the blare of the threat assessment system, lighting the tactical station back up.

Rukia, already working on it, pulled the targeting display back up and projected the results to the front canopy overlay. The screen magnified the Hollow, wounded and staggering, as it pushed itself upright with obvious effort. Grotesquely convulsing, its metal skin strained at the seams across its back and torso until whatever bolts or rivets holding it together snapped apart. Metal skin and stringy flesh parted, putting the obscene union of biomechanization on full display, as it suffered through several most wracking spasms. With a wrenching twist of its body and lash of its barbed tail it essentially split itself in two, sloughing off and freeing itself of its wounded lower body. Clawing away from its now lifeless and mangled lower legs, it bent down as the muscles across its back shifted and slid aside the plates of its skin. Unfolding from what could only be its ribcage, a pair of engines locked into place.

"You gotta be kidding me," Ichigo sighed.

Eerily balancing on its two remaining legs, long tail coiling back and forth, it turned its massive head at them, spread its jaws, and hurled itself into the air. For a moment, Ichigo had the distinct impression the Hollow was staring at him through the front viewport. And laughing at him. Engines searing a bright line through the darkness, the Hollow wheeled and zipped past them with startling agility, flying a direct line to the ship-lock gate.

"Are the patrol enforcers clear of the gate?" Rukia asked, tracking the target as best she could.

"Sensors read no lifesigns in its vicinity," Uryu said, the glow of the screens around him shining off his glasses.

Already lifting the ship to move into pursuit, Ichigo centered the nose at the ship-lock gate across the hangar from them and began to push the throttle up. "Let's get that door open then." A searing flash and the billowing gray brown cloud of dust filtering through the hangar killed the words on his tongue, and he quickly slammed on the braking thrusters. Flipping the front viewport overlay from natural light to thermal only served to prove what he had immediately suspected.

The Hollow had fired its laser cannons at the stone ceiling as it slipped out the broken gate, collapsing the roof on that side of the hangar and trapping them inside. Rukia ran her weapon reticles all across the piled stone rubble looking for some way to punch through it, flipping through and just as quickly discounting various weapon systems on the ship as either ineffectual or too dangerous. Sitting back, Ichigo flipped his mask up and rubbed at his chin.

"We need to get out of here," Ichigo muttered to himself. "That Hollow is out there running loose."

"I'm working on that," Rukia replied testily, her fingers angrily snapping off different buttons and switches.

"Do you think…" Uryu began, garnering their attention with his calm, measured voice, "That Urahara will continue to need this hangar?"

"Uh," Ichigo said blankly, thrown off by the question, "I guess not. The point of it was to build this ship, and here it is."

"And the ship-lock is already destroyed, along with a quarter of the ceiling," Uryu continued, tapping away at the controls of his console.

"Where are you going with this?" Rukia asked, cautiously interested.

"It's not where _I'm_ going," he replied, thinking himself clever, "It's where _we're_ going. Mister Abarai, I have recalibrated the wide and tightbeam emitters to subsonic frequencies, data is waiting for you in the cross-console."

"And…?" Renji said, obliging Uryu and pulling it up at his station. He could see it was a wide-angle sweep of the hangar, along with a control hook for the tightbeam.

"And I'm saying let's forget the door," Uryu said, adjusting his glasses, "And punch out a window."

"Get aboard, double time now," Rangiku ordered through her softsuit helmet comm, standing at the airlock as the officers filed past. Sitting low to the deck, their shuttle was waiting for them, sheltered in the natural stone cavern on the other side of the torn ship-lock gate. Beyond the shuttle's landing lights, valiantly pushing back the darkness, Rangiku could see the searing light of the suns boiling away at the horizon. This tiny rock had such an erratic orbit and rotation that day and night were difficult to predict, but she figured they had at least a couple hours of safety on the dark side of the planetesimal.

Just as they were reaching the shuttle the ground lurched beneath their feet, leaving them all stumbling and their comms suddenly alive with shouts of alarm. A flash of yellow lit them from behind and Toshiro and Rangiku spun back towards the ship-lock door, the landing lights on the shuttle swiveling to shine on clouds of brown and gray rock dust billowing out from the bent open section of the huge metal door.

"The roof just caved in," Rangiku noted. "Do you think-?"

"Look!" one of the officers called out, pointing into cloud of dust. A darker shape drew itself up amidst the thick cloud, its silhouette bending and reforming as it moved steadily closer. The cloud of dust rushed over them before they could finish boarding, and between the darkness of the cavern and the glare from the diffused landing lights, they were suddenly, entirely blinded.

"Fall back!" Toshiro ordered, physically grabbing one officer and hauling him back towards the shuttle. He joined the others as they pounded up the boarding ramp. "Pilot, set inertial dampeners to lockdown, push engines to full burn and rear I-Grav at maximum."

"Sir?" the pilot said, turning back with a raised eyebrow just in time to go white with fear. Out the rear doors of the shuttle, beyond the press of the officers sprinting aboard, the Hollow's enormous head emerged from the dust cloud and dropped level with the ground. Opening wide, coils of metal snaked out at them, barbed tips snapped open and gleaming in the shuttle's landing lights. The pilot screamed inside his helmet.

Vaulting into the seat beside the pilot, Toshiro slammed his hand down onto the dampener control, elbowed the I-Grav up to maximum levels and kicked the throttle, literally with his booted foot, up to full burn. The shuttle strained under the conflicting outputs, the cycling up engines and I-Grav trying to push it forward while the dampener system keeping it locked in place, and Toshiro spun around as Rangiku palmed the control to close the rear hatch. Out the viewport in the closed the door they could see the Hollow looming closer, ready to pounce, just as the engines reached full burn.

While shuttle engines are not as powerful as even the most basic spacecraft engine, designed primarily for extremely short-range transport, using the engine wash directly wasn't what Toshiro had in mind. The particles of rock and dust filtering around the ship rippled and began to flow, pushed by the I-Grav control surfaces, towards the rear. The Hollow barely paused as the engines lit and the emitters came online, opening its mouth wide and chainsaw teeth locking into place, eager to tear it apart.

However, instead of swallowing the shuttle whole, what it got was a mouthful searing agony. The dust flowing around the ship was swept right into the engine wash, super-heated into a cloud of molten rock, and turned into a plume of softly glowing gaseous lava aimed right down the Hollow's gullet. Watching it jerk away from the extreme heat only to writhe about trying to get the molten rock dust out of its mouth, Toshiro kept his face fixed from showing his satisfaction as he reached for the dampener control. "Chew on that for a while," he said, his tone clipped as he deactivated the lockdown system, sending the shuttle jetting away out of the cavern and up into the darkness.

Rangiku struggled her way over the tangled arms and legs of the officers in the rear compartment. No one had had time to strap in or secure themselves before Toshiro had vaulted all of them off the surface of Pendulum. "Captain," she said, extricating herself with some effort and leaning over next to his seat at the front of the shuttle, "What do you think happened to Ichigo and the others?"

"Pilot," Toshiro said, turning to the still-pale and slightly shaking man. "Uh, at ease," he said finally, thinking it better the terrified man keep his hands off the controls. His fingers dancing over the holo-panels, Toshiro repressurized the interior while he brought the widebeam comms online. "I'll see if I can get-" Toshiro turned his head just as Rangiku was removing her helmet, her thick strawberry tresses spilling out around her head. Her hair wasn't the only thing spilling out as she unzipped the collar of her softsuit and took a deep, chest heaving breath of fresh air. "-them raised on the comms," Hitsugaya ground out, rolling his eyes at her antics as he turned to face the controls again.

The sensor display began flashing wildly as the young captain set a course back to the _Hyorin Maru_ , and together both her and his eccentric partner leaned in to study it. "Is it that thing again?" Matsumoto asked.

"Thermal signature is all wrong and…" Toshiro adjusted the sensors to a tighter resolution, "It's coming from a different spot on the surface." Looking close at the sensor display, they glanced at each other before turning to look out the viewport next to him. Through the glassite they had a clear view of the blasted, ravine-scarred face of Pendulum, the heat flash of an explosion grabbing their attention as it was swiftly overtaken by the huge, billowing cloud of gritty, dusty smoke it generated. "Huh."

The smoke and dust whipped past the canopy of the black ship as Ichigo flew through the neat hole Rukia had blasted through the hangar wall, the _Sparrow Bee_ zipping out right behind him. Opening up into the side of a jagged ravine, he pulled back on the controls to nose up the ship, then twisted the throttle to launch the ship spaceward. "Ishida, get a comm line open to the shuttle for the location of the Hollow."

"Already doing it, and sensor results are being crosstalked to the tactical station."

"Renji, the engines feel a little choked."

"Keep your pants on, I'm switching the levels to stellar instead of terrestrial flight. There, reactor limiters lifted and control surfaces set to combat flaps."

Ichigo didn't have to say anything to Rukia before she began speaking. "The _Sparrow Bee_ is moving into an escort position for the shuttle and I've got a fix on the Hollow's thermal signature. It's gaining altitude and on an intercept course."

"I see it," Ichigo muttered, his ocular display readouts and the bracketed square glowing on the front of the canopy interlocking over the tiny streak of red-orange as it arced up towards them. "Now, let's see what this thing can really do."

The reflections of the stars slid across the surface of the black ship as its engines spun up, pushing it into a steep dive. The enraged Hollow, having returned to its spaceborne wedge like shape, was streaking up at them from the surface with its laser cannons glowing a hot yellow. Unconcerned, Ichigo remained true to course, hearing Rukia working on focusing her reticles as they sped towards one another.

Cannon fire sliced out into the dark as searing yellow beams tracked across the stars, neither finding their marks. Twenty thousand meters. Fifteen thousand. Ichigo gunned the throttle, his feet making minute adjustments as his fingers reached out to lightly touch the hand controls, preparing. Seven thousand meters. Two thousand meters.

Five hundred meters. The Hollow's huge shield-like head was rearing up in the dead center of his canopy, coils of claw tipped tentacles sliding into view.

One hundred meters. Ichigo's reflexes kicked into action.

Uryu, his eye on the rapidly dwindling time-to-intercept counter in the corner of the main sensor screen, only had time to make a noise of caution before Ichigo rolled the ship in a tight spiral. His stomach lurching in his gut, the inertial dampeners fought to keep him from flying too hard against his restraints, to the point they only left bruises instead of making him black out. Before he even had time to realize what Ichigo was doing, he had fired the braking thrusters and slammed open the control surfaces across the leeward side of the ship, pulling them into a crushing turn that had the structural beams of the ship groaning in protest. "Cutting it a little tight," Uryu managed to grind out, the sudden shift in g-forces pulling all of them hard into their seats.

"This ship is big, but it sure can move when it wants to," Ichigo replied.

The Hollow went skidding by over them, unable to cut inside their turning radius in time, giving Ichigo ample opportunity to ease out of their turn and into the Hollow's wake, which in turn gave Rukia ample opportunity to gain a solid target lock. The weapon reticles lined up in Rukia's vision as she flipped the weapon control to missiles, then fired. Two sparks raced out into the night, blazing across the darkness as they chased the Hollow. Cutting a sharp turn, the Hollow flung itself to the side, the missiles turning to follow. Another dodge, and another as the missiles closed in, the four of them unable to turn away from the inevitable.

"Wait, what's it do-" Renji asked, seeing the Hollow abandon its zigzag pattern, speeding as fast as it could in a single direction. The two missiles flew faster, gaining on it as it raced onwards. Leaning close to get a better look, all four of them drew back as the small flare that was the Hollow suddenly blazed with light, shining like a beacon in the dark. It had left the sanctuary of the shadow of Pendulum and was now exposed to direct sunslight. Worse, the two missiles flew out after it only to explode as soon as the light touched them, the heat and solar wind stripping them apart and igniting their warheads.

Rukia slammed her hand down onto her consoles as the Hollow wheeled and rushed back towards the shadow of the planetoid, streams of melted metal blown away by the sunslight stretching out into the dark. Its skin boiling and bubbled, the whole of it glowing a dull red, it came blazing at them with a new level of reckless abandon. Scrambling to reacquire target lock, Rukia cursed colorfully under breath before nearly shouting, "Ichigo, that's a collision course!"

"Coming in too fast," Ichigo shouted back, barreling out of the Hollow's way with a less than artful dodge. He knew he had undone Rukia's attempts at target lock, but it was either that or be skewered and eaten by a blazing hot alien ship.

"Target is coming around again for another pass," Uryu warned, tracing its projected path through the sensor display. Without warning two bright beams of yellow light sliced across their path and raked over the ship, crisscrossing over its dorsal fuselage and down one of the wings.

The canopy black again, Ichigo brought up the nav system in his link, seeing the Hollow's distance and trajectory as well as his own. "Damage report?" he called to Renji.

"Hull is holding steady, but the thermal tank is up to seventeen percent. Don't let it hit us with concentrated fire."

Ichigo was about to snark back at him when the Hollow, coming in fast behind its laser assault, was suddenly upon them. The blackened canopy cleared to the image of the Hollow ship's braking thruster fire as it flew past, snaking its whiplike tail across the midsection of the ship like snare. The noise of rubbing metal and bending hull plates squealed in their ears as the Hollow tightened its tail and ignited its main thrusters to full burn.

"Oh shit! Don't let it hit us with that thing either!" Renji added.

"It's pulling us laterally," Uryu shouted, barely able to hear the others.

"Hull sensors are going red!" Renji warned, his eyes trained on the needles and dials above him.

Another crunch from the plating beneath the tail wrapped around the ship was all Ichigo was going to stand. Fingers wrapping around the controls, he flicked closed the control surfaces and twisted the throttle, needing all the thrust from the engines to wrench themselves loose. He felt the ship straining and slip free for a moment, the tail loosing purchase as the ship drove forward, and for a second Ichigo thought they were going to pull free.

Until the Hollow spun them about, turning what would have been linear momentum into angular momentum. The _Zangetsu_ went spinning out of control as the Hollow unlatched its tail, the engines at full burn and all the I-Grav surfaces closed, it had no way to right itself, the combination of thrust and rotation leaving it tumbling erratically.

Right out of the shadow of the planet and into the direct, brilliant sunsshine.

"Get us out of the light!" Rukia shouted. The air temperature inside the ship immediately shot up as the ship's exterior surface baked under direct exposure to the heat and radiation from the suns.

"Thermal tank is rising, forty percent… fifty-two… sixty-eight…" Renji called out.

"I've got it, I've got it," Ichigo swore, flicking the control surfaces open and righting their spinning trajectory. "Rukia, start firing when I get the ship turned around."

"We don't have target lock," she snapped at him. "Besides, anything we fire will be atomized by solar wind!"

"That's the idea!" Ichigo shot back.

Rukia opened her mouth to tell him off, then paused, getting what Ichigo was hinting at, then immediately went back to her controls, a disbelieving smile curving her lips. "This is crazy!"

"That's the idea," Ichigo muttered, getting the ship back pointed back at the Hollow and twisting the throttle.

"What's the idea?" Renji quietly asked Uryu, who only shrugged in mute confusion.

From beyond the haze of solar light the black ship approached. The Hollow, turning to pursue the other, easier targets, stopped as it picked up a trace of it on its sensors. If it were possible for it to experience as human an emotion as disbelief, the Hollow was frozen by it, hanging unmoving in space as the great knife-edge shape of the _Zangetsu_ threw its shadow across the system. The sunslight washed over it, dark reflections of the suns' swirling, flaring surfaces spreading across it as the skin of the ship hungrily absorbed the heat and light. The fury of the stars in an obsidian mirror. A black sun.

It centered itself on the Hollow as the gunbays slid open.

Rukia clenched her fist, activating her firing control and feeling more than hearing the main railgun cannons pulse, millions of amperes of electricity accelerating their deadly projectiles. These weren't the gatling style, rapid fire railguns of her old ship, these cannons sacrificed fire rate for caliber and range, but she still kept the firing control activated, forcing the cannons to chamber and fire as quickly as the loading mechanisms allowed. Thankfully the Hollow sitting safely in the shadow of the planetoid, watching this all unfold, had no idea the true danger it was in.

A tungsten alloy slug fired from a railgun barrel on the _Zangetsu_ leaves the muzzle at close to three thousand meters per second. The range to the target is just over nine thousand meters, a third of that distance is illuminated by the direct sunslight while the remaining distance is in the shadow of the planetoid Pendulum. In the space of the full second the unshielded tungsten slug is exposed to the light, its surface temperature quickly exceeds four thousand degrees Kelvin. At this temperature, the slug undergoes complete and rapid sublimation, moving from solid to a highly energetic free-liquid. Finally, while the slug is no longer a solid, its constituent particles have only lost a percentage of their original velocity.

Over fractions of a second, the sunslight has turned the armor-piercing railgun cannons into superheated molecular shotguns. Exactly what Ichigo had counted on. Hitting the Hollow across all of its facing edges, the spray of molten tungsten literally burned it alive. Its armored plates, which had moderately protected it from thermal radiation as it flew briefly out of the shadow to evade the missiles, were no match for the direct application of superheated metal. Cracking and pitting as they boiled away, they exposed flesh and muscle to the molten metal as it kept raining down on it.

Following in close behind their assault, the _Zangetsu_ was just about to cross the eccliptical boundary into Pendulum's shadow when four thundering explosions rocked the ship in rapid succession. Curses were yelled as red lights began flashing across the bridge and sirens began to wail. Putting the commotion out of his mind, Ichigo left whatever new calamity had befallen his ship to the hands of the other three, intent on at least getting them out of the searing sunslight.

"No, no no no… no-no-no-no!" Rukia yelled, flipping up her visor and working the controls at her station at a frenzied pace.

"No hull breach!" Renji shouted, somewhat relieved, "But the thermal tank is up to ninety-one percent, don't let it hit us again. At all."

"That may be a bit more than Ichigo can handle, he isn't exactly known for his subtlety," Uryu pointed out.

"Would you two shut up, what the hell exploded?" Ichigo snapped back at them, limping the ship into the shadow.

"The coolant systems on the four forward cannons," Rukia answered with a distinctly unladylike snarl, slamming her palms down on the console. "No way to vent the heat with all that sunslight, it was hotter outside the ship than in. The exchangers got fried trying to cool the rails, so now the main guns are trashed."

"We've got more guns, don't we?" Ichigo asked. "Tell me we've got more guns."

"Surface temp is still too high to risk arming missiles but-"

The comm system chirped to life, calling for attention and Uryu reflexively established a channel, flicking the audio over to the main speakers.

"This is Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya-" The front canopy shifted to clear and the four of them glanced out the facing viewports, seeing a spark against the black as it approached. A long, silver-white streak of engine wash in its wake, one of the most advanced hardsuits they'd ever seen banked in their direction, giving them a dazzling view as the starlight shined off the pair of huge glimmering solar paneled wings extending behind it. The angular planes of its armored plating were patrol force blue and ice-white, it carried an immense long-barreled coilgun, and it moved with a speed and precision that hinted at its combat potential. "-Of the P-F Assault Hardsuit _Daiguren._ It appears you could use an assist."

"Captain Hitsugaya, our main weapons are currently offline," Rukia interjected before Ichigo could speak.

"Understood," Toshiro replied, his impressive hardsuit zipping in close enough to look through the canopy viewports on the _Zangetsu_. "You won't mind if I borrow this then."

The sound of creaking hinges and a rough, wrenching bang echoed through the ship as the four of them exchanged wondering glances. "Captain Hisugaya?" Rukia asked.

"It's clear that heat is only going to do so much here," Toshiro replied, flying past the canopy again in a rush of silver and blue, "I think it's time to cool things down a bit." The Hollow, smoking and melted, had turned to face them and was on approach, showing the full extent of the damage it suffered. Portions of its silvery metal plates had melted together under the light of the suns while others had cracked and split by the boiling tungsten spray. The whole of it was either charred to black, glowing red, or scorched and melted, yet it still came on, its horrid maw opening wide.

"You don't learn, do you?" and Toshiro flung what he had pried out of one of the _Zangetsu's_ damaged gunbays. Spinning end over end, it sailed across the empty void directly at the accelerating Hollow, as Toshiro shouldered his rifle. Syncing his hardsuit frame to his targeting system, he fine-tuned the aim of his rifle, tracking the reticle as it skimmed across his eye. Zeroed in and locked on, Toshiro puffed his braking jets to bring him to a stop, facing the Hollow as it surged towards him.

From the bridge of the _Zangetsu_ the four of them watched as Toshiro hung there in space after hurling something at the approaching Hollow, leveling his rifle and waiting to fire. The Hollow had size, and speed, and agony-fueled hunger on its side, but Toshiro held his ground, unconcerned.

A flash from the muzzle lit his hardsuit and the thrusters across his back fired with a small, anticlimactic puff. The thruster force countered the coilgun's as it let loose a single shot, the bullet proceeding to rupture the coolant tank he had thrown just as it entered the Hollow's massive mouth. Engulfed in a sudden cloud of white, the Hollow froze, literally, as its suns-baked and molten tungsten-covered body came in direct contact with the frigid coolant. Rapid temperature change leading to extreme differential splintered its plated skin, exposing more of the super-hot metal and flesh beneath, resulting in a chain reaction that violently tore it apart.

They watched him methodically shoulder his hardsuit rifle and turn in their direction, revealing the Hollow behind as it shattered apart. The glittering cloud of coolant sparkled in a dazzling array of colors as the biomechanical body within it seemed to simply come undone, splinters of its remains tumbling off on their initial trajectories or otherwise caught in the gravity wells of the nearby suns.

The comm blinked to life again as Toshiro's voice sounded across the bridge. "You said there are going to be more of these things?"

With the armor panels and defense sleeve retracted, the top airlock docking ring sealed with a hiss of equalizing pressure as the patrol force shuttle connected to the _Zangetsu_. Ichigo, leaning backwards on his station, watched Uryu and Renji prepare to leave. Their vacant stations at the rear of the bridge served as a sharp reminder that as much as he'd prefer to rely only on Rukia and himself, what Urahara had said was true. Without Renji and Uryu at engineering and astrometrics, the battle they'd just fought would have likely had a very different outcome.

Stepping around the raised boarding ramp set into the floor, Rukia made her way across the small loading deck toward the bridge after finally having time to change into a proper ship's flightsuit. Black, form fitting and paneled like Ichigo's, she finally felt a bit more professional now that she'd no longer have to operate the gunnery controls in ill-fitting, borrowed pants and an ink-stained pressure shirt. The status light above her flipped to green, signaling a secure dock and stable life support, and as the airlock door swung gently down a volume of blonde hair came tumbling down after it. Detective Matsumoto, hanging quite literally upside-down from the ceiling of the boarding deck, offered Rukia a brilliant smile before grabbing one of the railings and pulling herself onto the ship, twisting in midair to land somewhat cat-like on her feet.

"Hello again! This is some ship, it's so black on the outside we had a tough time getting the shuttle lined up right!"

"I… see," Rukia tentatively agreed. Somewhat off guard by the detective's boisterous attitude, and certain physical attributes, Rukia nodded politely as she made her way to the bridge. The soldier in her, the one who valued discipline and combat potential and assessed situations for tactical strengths and weaknesses on reflex, didn't quite know how to deal with Detective Rangiku Matsumoto. It was obvious the detective was skilled in investigation and forensic analysis, otherwise they'd never have caught up with them. Rukia had seen her confidently handle a weapon during the encounter in the hangar, and as executive officer aboard the _Hyorin Maru_ , she undoubtedly had command of the ship while Hitsugaya had been piloting his assault hardsuit.

And yet, she was just so utterly… girly. Rukia found this line of thinking bothersome. It wasn't that it made her self-conscious or envious, but all the same, she didn't find herself _not_ self-conscious or _un-_ envious either.

"Alright people, let's get a move on," Rangiku said, cupping a hand to her mouth and calling up into the shuttle. Uryu and Renji appeared at the door to the bridge as Shuhei, Hanataro, and Kon in his goldtone hardsuit slipped from the shuttle to the docking deck with varying levels of grace.

"You talked them out of arresting us?" Shuhei asked as he helped Hanataro up from the floor, "I wish I could've seen that."

"Eh, it's just a temporary reprieve, and it's in exchange for more work," Renji explained.

"Does it have anything to do with those things we've been roped into fighting a couple times now?"

"Yeah." Renji clapped a pale and drawn Hanataro on the shoulder and offered him a winning smile. "It's ten hours until the end of the worlds. What d'ya say we keep that from happening?" Hanataro looked as if a light breeze might knock him over.

Shuhei pursed his lips in serious thought, evaluating the weight of Renji's statement. "We'd better get moving then," he said, coming to a decision. A rustle at his back made him flinch, then move off further to the side once he realized another figure had slipped down from the shuttle, moving as quietly as a feather.

Dressed in a modest flightsuit of dark material and wearing her dark hair in a single plait down her back, stood a woman Renji recognized immediately. Her face, calm and composed turned towards Uryu, to which she offered only the barest of nods.

Ichigo, coming up behind Renji and Uryu, looked over them both at her, his brows creasing as he wracked his memory for her name. "Hey, isn't that…?"

"Kurotsuchi's girl," Renji gaped, whipping his head at Uryu. " _She's_ your crew?"

"Her qualifications are impeccable," Uryu sniffed, pushing up his glasses.

"Mister Ishida," Nemu said, speaking for the first time. "I was able to glean several pieces of sensor information regarding the present situation while in custody." There was a certain softness in her voice as she spoke to him, but it was buried beneath layers of dispassionate intonation. "Will we be returning to the _QNC Longbow_ or shall I upload the data to this…" she had caught sight of the consoles on the bridge, giving her the slightest of pauses, "Vessel?"

"No Nemu, we're heading back to the _Longbow_ to continue the mission. I'll debrief you on what's happened and then we'll begin analyzing that data," Uryu answered, steering her away from the group.

"Alright kids," Rangiku said cheerfully, "We'll be in touch!" With that, she reached up and hoisted herself back up through the airlock and onto her shuttle.

"C'mon," Ichigo said to Rukia, the others drifting off to separate conversations. "We've got a pair of docking maneuvers to do to get them back to their ships. She nodded and followed him back to the bridge, Kon following in her wake.

"You're gonna put Renji and Uryu back on their own ships?" Kon asked, sitting the hardsuit in front of the sensor display and idly flipping some switches.

"Yeah, they have their own ships and their own crews. I can't just keep them here." Ichigo spun up the engines and set them on course to the _Longbow_ sitting in orbit once the shuttle had undocked, zipping its way back towards the patrol force ship. Docking maneuvers were completed in short order and soon the _Longbow_ and the _Zabi Maru_ were both powered up and moving into formation off Ichigo's flanks as he set a course away from the twin suns.

"Ichigo, the _Hyorin Maru_ is coming along side and matching speed, are they supposed to be tagging along?" Kon asked, softly tapping his metal chin as he studied the sensor display.

A mix of confusion and annoyance crossed his face as Ichigo activated an audio comm to the patrol force ship. " _Zangetsu_ to the _Hyorin Maru_ , is there a particular reason you're coming into formation with us?"

Toshiro's face appeared on the screen, replacing audio comm with vid-comm and giving him a critical look. "I agreed to your ten hour grace period, but did you really think I was going to let you go off alone?" Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and sighed, "For the next half day, consider me your wingman."

"So you'll have a pirate, a vigilante, and a cop as your wingmen for this thing?" Kon asked, suppressing a chuckle. "That's weird company you keep. Strength in numbers I guess, though."

"Weird company is rich coming from an A-I… wait, what'd you say?" Ichigo asked, turning towards Kon.

"About your wingmen?"

"No," Ichigo clarified, shifting his gaze to Rukia sitting in the tactical station. "Strength in numbers." He could see that she'd caught on immediately and was even now loading up the loading up the location of the nearest tightbeam relay as she spun the comm system up onto her console.

Turning back around and pulling one of the articulated displays closer, Ichigo began doing the same thing before pausing to say, "Kon, you never said which ship it was you determined to be the origin of all the thefts and abductions. That mothership is going to be headed right for it, so I need to know where that ship is."

"Well… It's a little tricky," Kon hedged.

Ichigo stopped what he was doing and turned to the hardsuit 'body' Kon currently inhabited, his features cross. "But you _do_ know, right? You did manage to figure it out after all this work we've done?"

"Of course I have," Kon snapped indignantly. He went back to poking his metal index fingers together again, looking suddenly ill at ease. "But I don't think you're going to like what it means when I tell you."

"Stopping fuckin' around and tell me, we don't have time for games!"

"Alright, alright mister potty mouth!" Kon snapped. "It's the colonial navy prison ship, the _CNCS Heuco Mundo_."

A prison ship. The ramifications of it tumbled pell-mell through his head, going off in a dozen directions at once. Was it still under the control of the navy? Did that mean the navy was in on this sudden surge of bizarre Hollows? Had these Hollows been experimented on aboard the prison ship? Is that how they'd become so different from the run of the mill ones Rukia had fought for so long before they'd met? Had the ship mutinied? If so, why hadn't the navy done anything to get it back under control?

A cold truth began to dawn on him. The prisoners, that's the been the source of humans they'd experimented on. Captured Hollow DNA turned into genetic biomodifications and forcibly administered to the human prisoners. It's a perfect setting to perform such experimentation, with enough resources to support a large population.

"You extrapolated its trajectory," Ichigo said, eyes fixed far away as he continued along his various trains of thought. "What's its heading?"

Kon sighed, a strange noise since he required no air to speak and didn't have lungs in the first place. "Current projections show, with an eighty-two point six-six-seven percent probability…" Kon turned his metal, leonine head directly at Ichigo, "That it is enroute to-"

* * *

"Karakura Station," Orihime said cheerfully over her comm, "This is Traffic Control to the _CNCS Heuco Mundo_." As she watched the ship sliding slowly through the black, drawing ever closer to the station, she felt an unexplainable twinge of chilly fear. Depressing the comm again, she swallowed her nervousness and spoke again, "Please respond."

* * *

Drawing itself up from the shadows, it willed itself into existence, just as it had countless times before. At the fringes of its awareness, it could feel Ichigo settle back in the helm of this new ship. Though they both denied it, even to themselves, the thrill they shared of moving through this dark, endless void returned as Ichigo pressed the ship faster, something that had always been and would likely always remain.

It looked about at this false world, this fabricated reality it had constructed from deep within the genetic memory it had amasses with a mixture of resignation and anticipation. The huge, magnificent ships sliding slowly through the night, each one a pillar of glass and metal extending out into a future no one foresaw and stretching back into a past they'd all soon forget. Gleaming in the harsh, stark light, they were so familiar.

It stretched a hand out to the darkness beyond and gathered up a fistful. Blowing across it gently, it let the inky blackness sift through its fingers, fragments of memories dredged up by the sensation. This too was familiar, but something to have again. Something it needed again.

"I have done all I can," it said. Flicking its eyes to the star in the distance and stretching out the other hand, it let the pale light shine in bands through the fingers. The slash of yellow was vivid against the darkness, sending its memories reeling back over the centuries. "So many years… I never stopped searching…" it choked. "I will see you again, soon."

It looked up towards where the ships were headed, straightening its posture as he dropped his arms, tightening his fists at his sides. "And together, we will watch this system _burn_."


	27. Entropy

Orihime hummed tunelessly to herself as she worked, keeping a close eye on everything around her, all thousand-or-so ships in range, all of their regulation required nav-comm signals, all their trajectories and flight paths, and all the myriad of intricate details that made up controlling traffic. All at once. Far off and away back in her 'real' body, she knew her eyes were closed but she didn't let a little detail like that bother her, she didn't need them to see. Or rather, the reality that her eyes could see was so much _less_ than what she could experience here. They had a word for it; 'neurality', and there was a part of her that felt bad when the techs would talk about people who couldn't handle it. Floating serene and weightless with all of time and space stretched out before her, she found it odd that some people could be confused or overwhelmed by it. It was so easy, she thought to herself, shepherding the tiny blips of different spacecraft on their way, seeing where they'd been and where they were headed glowing like bright lines that arced and raced out into the night.

With only half a thought she issued a dozen different comms simultaneously while re-prioritizing the hundred different traffic routes she'd been juggling, looking for something to occupy her mind. It was no use, she discovered, as through it all one blip in particular hung at the fringe of her awareness, persistently unnerving her with its continued silence. She half-hoped it would acknowledge her and then be on its way, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew something was wrong.

Spiraling around her like particularly energetic electrons, one of several sparkles of light broke off from its orbit and zipped up to perch on her shoulder. "Still no reply from the _Hueco Mundo_?" chirped the small voice in her ear. Nodding, Orihime worried her lip as the little virtual agent directed its attention at the prison ship. Lots of other controllers had developed a library of useful automated functions to help manage traffic, but as far as she knew, no one else included personality subroutines in them. Part of working traffic control meant working alone, and she liked their company. She didn't know how close they were to being full A.I.s but she dared not tell the Ministry of Information Control, just in case.

Another one sped away from its orbit, streaking black and red, and came to a stop right in front of her face. "Are you still worried about that prison ship?" the tiny form demanded.

"Um, no. I mean, not necessarily," Orihime hedged, quickly busying herself by rechecking the guidelines of the ships she was working with.

"It isn't uncommon for navy ships like that to be low on staff, the control hooks for remote guidance are open even," said a third, flicking out to highlight the image of prison ship and piping the results of a sensor scan to Orihime's available datastores.

"See? The slackers have just left docking maneuvers up to Traffic Control, again," spoke up the one as it did the equivalent of poking her in the nose. "I don't see what the big deal is, dock it already."

All the attention her little helpers were paying to the prison ship was beginning to alarm her. "Well, I just don't think I should, not without verbal confirmation." Even she thought it was a thin excuse. "Besides, it's…" she whispered, "It's _lurking._ "

The tiny form snapped back in confusion and then doubled over with laughter. "A spaceship can't lurk, you silly girl!"

"It's just giving me a bad feeling," Orihime tried to explain, performing the equivalent of tapping her fingers together. "Their power plant is pushed to max and their reactors are at redline, but the comms are auto-responding with a docking request only and the engines are running on reserve. It doesn't make sense," she explained to them. Orihime turned a hesitant gaze at the prison ship, thinking it increasingly strange. "Maybe I'll request the navy strikers to do a fly-by-"

Something touched her shoulder, her real shoulder. The sensation blossoming weirdly through her biological nervous system, it wrenched her focus away from looped biofeedback of the traffic control system. Startled, the non-linearity of time collapsed around her as she shrieked, nearly falling from her s-dep station. Her eyes flew reflexively open but her SOTEN-Link was still connected to the station's processor core, setting her entire nervous system buzzing as biological impulses down her real nerves competed with the signals traveling through the room temperature superconducting nanofilaments that had been grafted to them.

"Sorry! Sorry Orihime!"

Her tongue jammed between her teeth, Orihime quickly re-established a simple level one connection and gathered up her tiny helpers, loading them to personal storage before she snatched the link-collar from around her neck, the arms of the traceset slipping from the contacts at her temples. Her eyes fluttered open as the last bits of six-dimensional perception vanished, her perspective crashing down back into her body like it was being squashed into a room too small for it. Sitting at her station in the semi-darkened central tower of Karakura Traffic Control she blinked somewhat glassy-eyed at the figure at her side until, "Oh, Mahana." Blink. Blink. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, y-yes," the other controller stumbled out, caught off guard, "I'm sorry I startled you Orihime, I just wanted to tell you your shift was over, you can clock out." The pause stretched out as Mahana continued to stand there, expectantly.

Orihime realized she was waiting to sit down at the station and quickly bolted upright, vacating the s-dep and nervously clasping her hands behind her. "Right! Silly me! Thanks, I'll uh, I'll just be clocking out then! See you!" Orihime gave her a winning smile, tried to quash the queasy feeling in her stomach, and stepped away from the console as Mahana nodded in reply, fitting the traceset to the contacts at her own temples and taking over Traffic Control.

Blowing a low breath, Orihime looked over her shoulder as she moved towards the tower exit, out the wide viewport in the direction of the prison ship that had so unnerved her. Wondering if she should tell Mahana or another controller about it, she told herself she was just being over-imaginative, and left the control room. The door swished shut behind her as Mahana began talking to herself, looking for a good place to dock the _Hueco Mundo_ to the station.

* * *

Rukia knew his eyes were following her as she walked slowly across the room, her fingertips delicately playing with the thin straps at her shoulders. Without breaking her stride she pushed one strap off her shoulder, then the other, proceeding to shed the gauzy white slip down her body to pool at her ankle just as she placed a knee upon the edge of the bed. A rare smile at the corners of her lips, she threw a glance over her shoulder to see him roaming his eyes up the smooth curves she'd bared. Lingering on her legs as she shifted her weight, his gaze moved slowly upwards until he met her eyes, the mischievous glint a match to her own.

The air was charged with a hungry energy as he left his place in the shadows to come near. Halting behind her, the inches between them crackled like static as his warm breath blew across the skin of her neck, anticipation heightening as she felt him reach for her. Tantalizingly, she leaned away and kept just beyond the tips of his fingers as she crept, cat-like, onto the plush expanse of white silk sheet.

On hands and knees, moving with a slow, sensuous grace, she slid her body onto the bed and down against the cool sheets, feeling their slippery chill against her skin as it touched the surface and a tingle of electric warmth knowing he was watching her every move. Propped on her elbows, her body flush against the bed from stomach to knees, she the electric warmth sparked a degree higher as the surface dipped under the weight of his knee. Facing away from him, all she felt was the brush of his knuckles sliding slowly up the back of her thigh and she immediately stretched out beneath the simple touch. Purring softly in her throat, she felt feather-light kisses starting at the small of her back and trail up her spine as he slipped above her, following her onto the bed. The pillars of his arms moving to either side of her own, his kisses slipped up her shoulder, nosing her hair aside as his lips glided over her neck. Rising up to meet him, she lolled her head to expose more of the column of her neck to his warm kisses and sought to feel the heat of his skin against her back.

Similarly denying her, she found he kept his body just beyond the range of her arched hips and growled a noise of frustration, eliciting a chuckle from his throat that vibrated through his lips and across her body. His lips remained the sole point of contact beyond a few brushing strokes, tracing the shell of her ear as she writhed beneath him, trapped facedown between his arms at her shoulders and his knees beside her own. She dared not admit it but the nearness of him, the caress of his body heat hinting, promising of his proximity, was driving her wild with the desire to touch him. A smoldering ache within her, long denied, buried or ignored by the soldier in her that always demanded control, was yearning with fresh need and the memory of his touch only fanned it higher.

His lips left her skin and for a horrible second she felt bereft of the small amount of contact they'd made, alone as the hunger within her cried out its abandon. Fingers quickly slipped around her waist and in seconds she'd been rolled to her back. Reaching, grasping arms encircled each other in a desperate attempt to remove the space between, and as skin came in contact with skin she could feel the electric tingle shivering and cascading across their skin. Bodies pressed together, lips soon followed and their gentle embrace spiraled into breathless pants, bruising kisses and clutching hands that roamed possessively over curves, scars and muscles.

His lips trailed down over the pulse point of her neck and across the skin of her chest as her fingers wound through his hair. Impatient noises mewled from her parted lips as she arched her back up to meet him, eager legs slipping around his waist to hold him close, feeling every inch of him. With a feral grin, soft lips pressed against her neck as her blood pounded under her skin. Hard teeth nipped at her before his tongue laved the spot he'd bit, maddeningly alternating between jolting her and soothing her.

Eager for the feeling of completeness, for him, she tried to tighten her hold on his body and groaned in frustration as he began to slide away. With a slow and tortuous procession, his kisses and nips travelled down her body as his hands eased themselves down her sides. Longing gave way to confusion, to revelation, and then to anticipation as she tipped her head back, the tip of his tongue snaking out to draw intricate designs around and over the tightened peaks of her breasts. Her body quivered as the planes of his body slipped across her own, his hands finding her hips as he sealed long, lingering kisses to the sensitive buds of her nipples. Releasing her, she chilled as those lips moved to kiss gently down her cleavage as he handedly spread her before him, pressing the outside of each thigh to the cool silk and baring her smooth, heated center.

Soft and hard, the opposing sensations had stark delineations even in her bliss-clouded, wantonly exposed state. Pinned by fingers like iron but caressed by the sheets beneath her, she could feel him pressing tender kisses to her flushed skin in a descending, meandering line. Her breath quickened and her fists twisted into the silk like a lifeline as drew her knees out, unfolding her like a flower. Each soft kiss down her body and stroke of his hands up her thighs rattled the foundations of her control, leaving her panting, desperate, and eager for more.

Firm fingers pressed harder to yielding flesh, they and his mouth were the only points of contact as he slipped kisses over her navel. Her breathing becoming ragged as his hands and lips closed their distance, fingers gliding up her legs as the rest of him continued downward. She felt him settle to the bed and the liquid fire she kept beneath her armor of ice threatened to melt her from within, the heat pounding in her blood as her hands strained against the give of the sheets. Tendrils of his warm breath rolled over her as her hips rolled up to him, seeking, yearning, almost begging for his touch.

Lifting her head, she answered his cocky grin with a silent command, her legs spreading wider in brazen invitation. The tension in her mounted like a coiled spring winding tighter as he neared. With a shudder and gasp, tautness of her body released as the hot slickness of his mouth sealed against her. Her eyes slid out of focus as she fell deliciously limp, the pent up energy was sapped from her body by his confident, delicate touch fluttering against her most sensitive of places.

She managed to see his coal-black eyes closing behind their lids as he hungrily devoured everything she willingly offered. Head thrown back, her shining dark hair was tossed against the white silk and framed her flushed, glowing skin as the wash of relief ebbed into a roiling, mounting tide. Control was an illusion, all that mattered was sensation. Ecstasy building, her own coal-black eyes rolled back as insatiable hunger for this, for _him_ , became the only thought in her head.

Rukia bolted upright from the dream with a snap, clutching the covers to her heaving chest. Breathing hard, eyes staring around, it took her a moment to realize where she was, one of the small bunks in one of the cramped, half-height cabins on the _Zangetsu._ Gone were the silken sheets and endless expanse of bed, replaced by thick, scratchy covers and a too-firm bunk, both stubbornly holding the scent of long-term storage. Realizing quickly she was alone in the small room, she shook off the last of her dream as she rose, wrapping the covers about her to ward off the cold that had crept into the air.

The image of the two of them flitted through her mind as the last vestiges of the dream slipped away, and Rukia turned to the mirror in the room, peering at herself. Sleep shadowed but familiar blue-violet eyes beneath disheveled black hair stared back at her, a light sheen of sweat glistened at her brow and across her chest. Hitching the covers up closer over her body, telling herself it was due to the chill from the deck plating, she set off out the chamber door and into the central loading bay.

If she could find the other subject of her dream, no doubt consumed with piloting and its associated complex mathematical computations with nary a thought to most anything else, she could be sure that it had been just a dream, a harmless fantasy her subconscious stitched together. Never mind that it had felt more like a memory than a dream. Never mind that in her dream they each had exuded soft, sensuous and confident familiarity borne from years of intimacy, while she and Ichigo were still figuring out what exactly their relationship was and how it fit together.

And the hunger she'd felt for him. It'd been a frightening, powerful desire that bordered on primal and undeniable. The soldier in her was immediately wary of such a consuming, overwhelming emotion, uncertain how to feel about such a loss of carefully held control. There were other parts of her, parts that nothing to do with combat and fighting and tactics, that were drawn to such emotions, trying to convince her that perhaps a little loss of control wasn't a bad thing.

Making her way up to the blastdoor, the thick blanket swishing at her feet, she was just cresting the landing when a voice called out her name from deeper inside the bridge.

"Rukia, please come onto the bridge. There's something you have to see."

Perplexed by his request, she stepped over the threshold and squashed the irrational prickling of her soldier senses, warning her something was amiss. The cold metal biting at her bare feet and shivering slightly as she crept forward onto the darkened bridge, she squinted into the darkness. With the running lights off and the sleeve enabled over the canopy it was near pitch black around her, with only the meager light from a few dim screens and buttons to light the way. The warmth of her dream had fled, leaving only a cold emptiness as she asked, "Ichigo? What is it? I can't see a thing…"

"That doesn't matter," his voice answered back. "C'mon, your station is all set up."

Hidden in the darkness, at the fringes of her vision, something moved around her. The acrid stink of decay filled her nose, gagging her, bringing bile up her throat and she instinctively groped for the grip of a weapon. Unarmed and defenseless but for a thin sheet, her breath caught as she drew back, her heart beginning to pound in her chest as something came forward from the far end of the bridge, from where the pilot's station was.

"Ichigo…?"

The few lights around her played across a shape, glistening with filmy wetness and dangling like some horrid type of marionette as it moved through the dark. The features of his face that she'd become so… intimately familiar with, were only vaguely defined and haunted with a ghastly pallor in the console-light, shifting the color of his hair. Orange, to white…

To black.

"Where are you going…?" the shadowy figure hissed, "There's no where for you to run, _Rukia._ "

Where Ichigo had been, a specter from her past emerged from the shadows, staring at her with eyes like chips of obsidian. A scream pierced her ears, erupting from her own throat as he reached for her. The sleeve covering the stump of what remained of his arm drew back, revealing something wet and horrid in place of his hand.

_WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU._

Thrashing wildly, Rukia bolted awake again, kicking and fighting the tangle of sheets around her, panting fiercely. Curled in, arms wrapped around herself, eyes wide and staring, she scanned the darkness of the room in a panic before dropping her face into her hands, an ineffectual shield against the pain of returning memories. Eyes moist with unshed tears, she pushed her hair back from her face and worked on evening out her breathing.

"Just dreams," she told herself after a time. How long it took for her to find some measure of calm she couldn't say, it was only when she noticed faint starlight filtering in through the viewport to her side and she realized the defensive sleeve must be deactivated. Moving from the bunk, covers forgotten, she stood before the viewport and wide stretch of pinpricked black beyond, letting the tiny constant points of white and red and yellow and blue soothe her nerves. The stars never shined through the cloud layer on Junrinan Two or above her during the years she'd spent in her brother's house on Inzuri, with its unchanging, ever-twilit sky.

A breath of relief escaped her lips as she turned slightly to see the tall profile of the _Longbow_ flying in loose formation beside them, the wide snubbed-nosed prow of the _Zabi Maru_ just a bit beyond. Resting her forehead against the clear surface of the viewport, she breathed again. "Just dreams," she whispered to herself again, staring into the dark. The small degree of calm she had felt began to fade though, realizing the deep blackness beyond was not just simple emptiness. Somewhere, from beyond the deepest black, the Hollow mothership was coming, and a swarm of Hollows with it.

Locating her underwear, pressure shirt, and flightsuit, she pulled them back on and left the low-roofed cabin, ducking up through the crouchway and into the central loading bay. Heading up the steps to the maindeck she found Ichigo alone on the softly lit bridge, sitting backwards on his pilot station saddle and leaning back against the console, flicking his finger at a floating neural display. His helmet was off, hanging from one of the manual control system's handles, letting the huge sweep of stars above him play their light through his hair and glitter across the banks of chrome switches around him.

The degree of difference between the scene before her and the dream she'd had slowed her as she set foot on the bridge deck. Ichigo, comfortable at the controls of a ship and free from that pinched, cramped and sullen disposition he'd had when she met him, looked more at home there than she'd ever recalled. Their eyes met over his glowing display and she expected his unguarded expression to vanish, only it didn't. The furrow between his brows relaxed and the corners of his mouth turned up in the hint of a rare smile, just for her.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"Yes," she lied uneasily, shifting her arms. Soft whirring and metallic footfalls from behind forced her onto the bridge before she could say more, Kon's empty hardsuit 'body' striding across the maindeck and through the bridge blastdoor, sidling past her with a machined grace. "Kon? You didn't request permission to the bridge…"

"Permission requires an authority to give it," Kon waved away, falling heavily into one of the rear stations, the seat giving an alarming creak as it supported his weight. "I don't recognize any such authority on this ship."

"But…" Rukia turned a laden look at Ichigo and found his face had hardened in the presence of the mouthy A.I., his scowl back firmly in place.

"I'm the pilot of this ship, and you're the tac officer," he said to her, "No one's the captain. Just like it was."

On a ship of this type and size, there was little difference between pilot and captain, but it heartened Rukia to hear he preferred to keep their original working relationship intact. "Have there been any comms?" she asked, clearing her throat with a polite cough and taking his cue to focus on the task at hand as she ducked into the tactical station.

"Nothing yet, but the channels are overloaded. Bandwidth is getting hard to come by as chatter filters in from the Outer Orbits. None of it's good news either." Ichigo set his feet down on the deck, leaning forward to stare at the plating. "Kon's been skimming the comms, people are claiming there's a shadow that blots out the stars, trailing a glitter of silver… all of Ejji is eclipsed. We figure it's going past Koriboru now, distress comms are coming in about flooding on Koriboru Four."

"Floods?"

"The mass, it must be enormous… It's pulling up the tides as it goes by. Relief vessels headed out there aren't heard from again, and some of those outer settlements are going dark as well."

"Did they manage any scans or…?"

Ichigo met her eyes and shook his head. "There were a few reports of long range scan attempts but no clear results. A few of those headed in for a short range scan and fly-by, but none of them returned and only one managed to send back a wide-band comm signal that was picked up by a relay station."

"What'd it say?"

"It was just seven and a half seconds of screaming." Ichigo watched her grow more concerned, if she was alarmed at all she hid it well under the frosty set of her soldier's face. "The newscasters are trying to squash that clip. Anyway, the official word is that the area is experiencing a gravitometric anomaly and everyone in the area should evacuate as quickly as possible."

"What's been the civilian response?"

"The system is starting to panic, there's over a thousand ships in that sector."

Troubled, Rukia blew a low breath. That was a lot of civilians in harm's way. "Is the mothership still on course for the station?" she asked, her hands smoothing out over the consoles and button panels of the tactical station.

"From what little data there is, yeah I think. Something on that prison ship, or on the station itself, is still drawing it in."

Rukia glanced out the canopy, her eyes taking in the starscape around them. A thousand civilian ships, she could well imagine what it must feel like for them. In the Outer Orbits, Naval presence was rare and armed escorts even more so. Ships were left to fend for themselves with cobbled together mass drivers or vacuum-sealed flash cannons, despite the ban on ship-mounted weaponry.

"Well, we've got two things they didn't have," Ichigo answered. "We know what we're up against, and we've got this ship."

"Hey, listen," Kon interrupted, "About this ship, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"I'll talk to you about it later," Ichigo dismissed, beckoning Rukia closer to show her the displays of rough calculations on the size and mass of the mothership he'd worked out while she slept. He hadn't even begun explaining them when the comms chirped to life at the communication station. Sighing as he exchanged places with Rukia to cross the bridge, he ran his fingers through his hair as he prepared to answer. "It's the _Longbow,_ " he told her, seeing Rukia deflate a little as he accepted the request and opened a channel to the ship off their wing, setting one of the main monitors to vid-comm mode.

Expecting Uryu's typical professional detachment, Ichigo was taken off guard when Nemu appeared on the screen. "At present velocity, we should be arriving at Karakura Station in approximately forty-six minutes," Nemu said evenly, forgoing any attempt at greeting. Hands clasped behind her in a pose identical to the one she'd adopted in Kurotsuchi's Bio-mod chop shop on Junrinan Two, she seemed oblivious to the way it strained the material of the new softsuit across her chest.

"Uh, yeah," Ichigo somewhat lamely agreed. His own calculations told him the same thing, it didn't really warrant a full discussion though.

"The _Longbow_ has been acknowledged by the station's long-range sensor and guidance systems, but we have not received any further communications. Has the _Zangetsu_ had any word from the station?" Nemu's voice, that curious blend of melody and monotone, held no hint of emotion that Ichigo could detect.

He checked his sensor and comm logs again before turning back to the vid-screen. "No, just the station's nav buoy, same as you." Now that she mentioned it, it did seem kind of odd that traffic control hadn't contacted them at all.

"Mister Ishida suggests that if we come within eight minutes of the station without further contact, that we arm weapons and prepare for possible hostile contacts."

"Let's not jump to conclusions, we don't know the situation," Rukia cautioned.

The implications of what Nemu had suggested didn't sit well with Ichigo and he shifted uncomfortably as his thoughts turned to his sisters and friends. "Push it to a three minute window and defensive weapons only, no ordinance. Stay off the tightbeam and keep to passive sensors only," he advised, reasoning that they didn't want to advertise their approach any more than they strictly needed to. "The nav buoys are still operating and the automated guidance system is working, so the power's on. We just don't know who's home yet. Pass the word to Renji and Hitsugaya, too. If Ishida's right, that's one thing, but I don't want to put the station in any more danger than necessary."

"Yes, sir," she said crisply before the vid-screen winked out.

Ichigo shut down the comms and turned to face the tactical station, finding Rukia staring at him with an odd look on her face. "What?" he bristled.

"Nothing," Rukia diffused, helplessly watching the scowl slip back onto his face as he returned to his pensive, brooding pose. Try as he might to deny the captain's bars, it seemed that he could not escape the responsibility that came with them. Even stubborn Renji and rigid Toshiro acknowledged it on some level, dragged into Ichigo's wake as he flew headlong into the unknown.

Command suited him she decided, but not comfortably. It was like an ill-fitting softsuit, chaffing and constrictive, but still necessary. He had the heart stand up, the courage to act, but not the experience to fall back on. He thought that scowl he wore hid all his thoughts and emotions, but Rukia had learned to read between the frown lines on his face. Lives hung in the balance and that weighed on him, here in the interminably long hours between destinations. She could tell that, inwardly, he was agonizing over the decisions he'd made in the heat of the moment, when he'd been so certain of the _rightness_ of his course, now seeming rash in retrospect.

All the same, she hoped it did not poison Ichigo's self-confidence.

Rukia turned her attention down to her tactical station. She knew that distracting him would only delay the process, and that it would do him no good to try to assuage his doubts and concerns. To deny of the seriousness of the situation would be naïve, and hollow assurances that everything would be okay would hinder more than help. No, Ichigo had to realize that with the responsibility he'd taken on came with two added burdens; doubt of the wisdom of your orders, and guilt for their consequences.

She remembered back to before she met Ichigo, a lifetime ago it seemed, to the day she stood on the deck of the _Soto Kotowari_ with Captain Ukitake and the assembled officers. To the day she stood vigil as the empty casket drifted slowly away into the dark, the name stenciled plainly across it burned indelibly into her mind. She'd heard Ukitake say somberly, 'Doubt is the crucible in which the metal of conviction is tempered, and guilt is the hammer that gives shape to the bars of command.'

She turned away from the memories as quickly as they'd come, forcing herself back on task. This mission was different from the one that had claimed his life, she told herself as she stretched her fingers, and Ichigo was vastly different as well. Any apprehension she experienced she could confidently attribute to simple nervous energy. Ichigo was as fine a pilot as any she'd met, and she'd been manning weapon systems longer than she cared to remember. They were as best prepared for anything that might happen as they could. For some reason, that did nothing to assuage her unease.

Putting her unsettling thoughts aside, she flicked her fingers across her consoles, trying to configure a new weapon loadout to replace the main forward cannons. There were two real options she could employ, but neither was particularly applicable to the mission at hand. There was no time to repair the burnt railguns, so she settled on switching the gimbal turret's ammunition from anti-personnel to armor-piercing and hoped they didn't need to do heavy assault on hardened targets. Hope, she thought again, would probably be their best weapon.

Approaching the station seemed to take longer than Ichigo and Rukia would have liked, even at the speed they were traveling. Filling the time with whatever he could, Ichigo had finished absorbing the details of the navigation system and had moved on to the specifications of the ship's three main, and enormous, engines. It was there, crouched down amid the engineering crawlways and manifold hatches that he remembered what Rukia had said about losing himself in his work. Striking upon the idea of opening the galley station in the loading bay and asking if she wanted to eat, he entered the bridge only to find the tactical station empty. Ducking through the blastdoor, Rukia was sitting at his pilot's station instead, examining several displays detailing the control layout. With all the cabins lights off and the console screens dimmed, the stars seemed exceptionally bright, limning the bridge with their soft, blue-white glow.

Speaking quietly to herself, Rukia stopped when she heard him walking around the tactical station and step down to where she was. Her displays vanished as she made to get out of his way but slowed as he waved her to stay where she was, a smirky grin turning up a corner of his mouth. Narrowing her eyes at it, she none-the-less settled back on the saddle and could well imagine what he was thinking.

Standing just behind the pilot's station, Ichigo leaned back against the tactical console and took his time appreciating the image of her straddling the seat. The dichotomy of Rukia struck him again, soldier and dancer at once, wrapped in her body-clinging black flightsuit and with her thighs pressed tight against the saddle but all the power and speed of this deadly gunship under her fingertips. She was fiery and obstinate and challenging and everything that Orihime wasn't, and it was becoming clear to him that this was something he would never want to let slip away.

So he sat down behind her. "Remember when I asked if you wanted to come to the pilot's station and fly the _Sode no Shirayuki_ with me, on our descent down to Junrinan Two?"

"Yes," she said warily, looking over her shoulder as she felt his hands sliding down her arms before he wrapped his long fingers around the manual controls, requiring that his hips move forward until he was pressed against her rear. He reengaged the flight system and the ship gave a little shudder as it left auto-navigate.

"The best way to learn how to fly," he said, coaxing her hands onto the controls beside his own, "Is to practice."

"I know how to fly," she claimed hotly. She had flown her own ship before she'd met him and had more than several successful missions under her belt to prove it.

"This ship is a little different," he said, "It uses an older style of control surface architecture and the main engines are a little sensitive."

Rukia rolled her eyes. Without exception, every pilot she'd met was like this, all them claiming that there was more art than science when it came to driving their precious ships. 'All of them are unique and subtly different, requiring years of patience and skill to master.' What a load of crap. Ships are ships, you point them where you want them to go and push the throttle up until you get there. Still, just to humor him, she placed her feet upon the control pegs and tightened her hands around the handles. A roar so loud and primal that it was felt more than heard thundered through the ship as a surge of acceleration sent the sleek black ship streaking out of formation.

A thrill of absolute terror raced through Rukia and left her clinging to the handles with her heart in her throat. Still in shock, she had never seen such raw power in a ship like this before. She had never seen a ship like _this_ before. Trying to correct, Rukia shifted the controls slightly, and gave the throttle another hint of a twist and the ship answered back, gunning hard and pushing her back into the hard wall of Ichigo's chest as it angled upwards to leap toward the stars above.

"Easy there," Ichigo said, content to sit back and enjoy the feeling of her against him.

Pushing down the singular moment of fear, Rukia's lips thinned into a grimace as she redoubled her concentration on getting the ship back under control and on course. Ichigo wasn't making it easy though, despite his suggestion, as she could feel him chuckling to himself. Another few seconds of fighting the controls nearly had her convinced the ship was unpilotable, everything she did to try and get straightened out just resulted in massive overcorrections and bursts of speed. Next to her on the cross-control panel, a comm request blipped open.

"Don't answer that," Rukia ordered, knowing full well that the ship appeared totally out of control and mortified of the idea that anyone else know it was her fault. "I just need…" she turned the handles, pulling slightly and sent the ship fishtailing, the stars wheeling over their heads, "A few more seconds…" Lip caught between her teeth, she tried again and again, only to send the ship racing around wildly.

Brushing the hair gently away from her ear, he bent down to whisper, "You can't just _force_ the ship to do what you want." Between leaning this way and that, he felt her shiver as his breath curled around her neck. Enjoying the reactions he could tease from her on these rare occasions, he smiled privately to himself before settling his hands on her waist. "You have to find a way to work together."

The words had a familiar ring to them, and Rukia didn't want concede that he might have a point so she remained silent as her fingers loosened around the handles, the muscles in her legs relaxing from their panicked constriction. Taking a deep breath and looking at the controls with fresh eyes, she blocked out the feeling of him against her back and his hands around her waist, narrowing her focus on the flight systems the same way she'd narrow her concentration down the sights of her guns. Smoothly, with a new level of confidence, she shifted the controls and pitched the ship down and around towards their original course, her toes tapping the foot controls while her fingers worked the handles and throttle with growing familiarity. She managed to coax a proper heading out of the ship and get them back on course, letting satisfaction and triumph spread a smile across her face. Easing them back into formation with the others, she re-engaged the auto-nav and let the computer handle the finer corrections as she crossed her arms and shot a daring look over her shoulder. "I swear if you say one word Ichigo, one word…"

He could feel her bristle against him as she turned to look over her shoulder, the irked set of her lips preparing to launch any one of the verbal retorts she had armed on her tongue if he made the mistake of saying the wrong thing. He knew her well enough by now though, so he wasn't about to fall into that trap. Rukia didn't need his approval or validation, and if it was praise or accolades she desired she would've left covert operations long ago. No, he knew just as well as she did that she was an accomplished and skilled pilot, and had no doubt she'd be able to fly the _Zangetsu_ without his help. Still, to him, watching her was its own reward.

It dawned on Rukia, as she felt her hair brushed away from the nape of her neck, precisely why he hadn't spoken a word, and a shift of her hips confirmed it. "Are you…" was out of her mouth before she could rein it in. The truth was that he most certainly _was_ , and the sensation of him moving to lean over to press the bridge blastdoor lock sent a brand new shiver of adrenalin through her. His hands slipped back into place as his lips caressed up her neck, her head tipping back to look up at the stars as she relaxed against him. "You know Ichigo," she began, pressing the 'disconnect' control on the comm panel when it chirped again. Then setting it to mute.

"Hmm?" His attempts at unzipping her flightsuit were thwarted as she stood up and turned around.

"The thing about this big, powerful ship…" she leaned over to whisper the rest in his ear, smiling at the sudden boyish flush of embarrassment across his cheeks even as he tried to play it cool. That was her Ichigo, the one she knew, the one she wanted, not the one in her dream. Not from either dream.

* * *

Rukia was walking back onto the bridge carrying a cup of precious coffee when she heard it. It was a simple sensor system alert tone, the kind that would sound whenever any user-enabled parameters were satisfied, but the connotations of this one were immediately apparent. She watched Ichigo at the pilot's station and Kon at the comm station freeze as the chime ended. Rukia immediately moved to her station, her coffee forgotten, knowing they'd hit the close-range threshold and all the while the comm system had remained ominously quiet.

Ichigo closed the panels he was reviewing and turned around on the saddle, his feet automatically finding the pegs and controls as he worked the kinks from his neck. "We're in visual range," he said, checking the distance to the station. His fingers hovered over the control that would switch his center screen to display their destination, but he was unsure of what he'd see after activating it. The sound of the small-bore turrets arming and priming ratcheted beneath the hum of the engines, and a glance out the canopy told him the info-overlay had been switched from general to tactical. To his right a small screen brightened up and upon inspection, Ichigo realized it was a wingman monitor panel coming online, Renji, Uryu and Toshiro all registering their system and targeting states.

"We are weapons hot," Rukia said without inflection.

Ichigo drew up his resolve, pressed the button, and sat back to watch the screen set between his handlebars shimmer and zoom in, focusing on Karakura station. If he hadn't known better, at first glance the scene was indistinguishable from his first approach, flying his father's medical ship back in from the rim after several years of absence. The station still hung there, huge and silent against the backdrop of inky blackness, surrounded by the comparatively tiny specks of ships and freighters. Relief eased the knot in his shoulders; the station was the picture of tranquility and normalcy.

Kon produced a rough approximation of a polite cough from his suit's speaker, and then leaned over to stage-whisper to Rukia, "I feel like someone should point out that we are on an intercept course with a civilian installation, and arrayed in an attack vector, and we have weapons armed."

"I know," Rukia replied, brows knit. "We should have seen a response by now, standard protocol is to sortie a fighter wing and issue a priority warning. Something's still wrong here."

The same thought was occurring to Ichigo as he turned a dial beside the screen, setting it to its highest magnification and panning the image around. Centering on a freighter, a tiny, grainy red-and-white shape on the screen, he watched it floating slowly through space, the unfocused drab gray of the station behind it. There was something off about it, its trajectory was angled wrong and it was starting to list several degrees sideways, an errant I-Grav pulse or braking thruster could easily send it tumbling.

A cold sweat broke down Ichigo's back as he realized what he was seeing. "There's no one flying that ship, she's adrift, right there next to the station." As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. He refocused the image just as the freighter's inertia carried it over, slowly revealing its other side.

"We're too late."

The freighter had been ravaged, broken nearly in half and torn apart like plastipaper, then abandoned with shockingly inhuman indifference. Looking like an untidy stack of cards, its inner decks were left exposed to the vacuum of space, visible through a gaping rent in the hull where half its starboard plating had been sheared away. Piping and conduits hung from the shredded tear like mechanical guts, bleeding fluids that froze into glittering crystals as they trailed away. Swallowing dryly, Ichigo rolled the zoom away, shrinking the image of the dead freighter but filling the screen with more and more and more ships, too many to count, all of them drifting lifelessly around the station. None had been spared, the remains of civilian cargo ships tumbled slowly near what used to be navy transports, the gleaming panels of luxury yachts shined with polished brilliance as they gently floated away, torn from their cracked and broken fuselages. Where there had once been a teeming flow of stellar traffic at all hours of the metric day and night, there was now only a debris field filled with the dead, empty husks of ships, ripped asunder, partially devoured, then discarded as the attackers moved on other ships, other food.

"Rukia, keep the passives tuned for hot signatures and be ready to train the weapons on anything still powered on, I don't care if the system is telling you it's reserve engines or backup batteries or the heating element in a lunch carton, if it's running, it's a threat."

Rukia nodded mechanically, constantly filtering the scan results through the tactical system by way of long-practiced routine. She'd seen the warzones of men and brutish savagery of Hollows, but never like this. Her eyes flitting from one dead ship to the next a horrible sort of sterile categorization began to fill her mind. Corporate cruiser, clawed and ripped in half, engine compartment entirely missing. Short range cargo barge, harpooned and half-shredded. J-Class observational ship, port flank melted to the sub-structure by energy weapon impact, then sliced open and gutted from within.

Her stomach roiled and she felt sick. Short range transport vessel, the type that ferried passengers to and from cruise liners. Crew compliment, three; passenger capacity, twenty-four. Tourists. Families. Main engine exhaust vents heavily damaged, likely while trying to escape. Rukia tried to stop, to look away. After crippling the ship, the exterior hull of the crew compartments and passenger deck was subsequently… Rukia took a trembling gulp… torn off, the interior consumed. "Kon, shut down optics, just give me telemetry."

"You think that's a good idea?" cautioned Kon, his mechanical body whirring as he peered closer at the screen. "What about the station?"

Ichigo rolled the screen back to take in the station again, now that they had better resolution, and it was worse than he'd feared. What he'd taken as little shadows across its massive rings and facings he could see now were gouges and pits in its bronze-gray skin. Lines arced across it, thin, miniscule lines relative to the station itself, until he looked closer to see they were huge swathes of blackened plating, seared by laser fire and the tiny blemishes in the surface were huge cratered impact sites. Projectile fire had punched through the outer hull structure, tearing through the integrity layers, faint crackles of sparks still showering from within. Two of the minor docking rings had suffered direct collisions with the debris of massive ships. Mouth dry, he couldn't look away from them, their skin blown outward and the structure buckled under the stress of decompression.

"This isn't a station anymore," Ichigo said, cold and detached. "It's a graveyard." A signal at his side drew his attention, the wingman monitor was issuing a notice from the _Longbow_. "Uryu's cut his engines and comms, he's dropping back for some reason."

"For a good reason," Rukia realized, "Shut down our engines, quick! Cut our speed to an absolute minimum but don't use the braking thrusters, use the I-Grav only. We need to slow our approach."

Ichigo was following her instructions before he realized, and it took a moment to see what their intent was. "Cut the lights, give us a little pitch and roll, cycle the power plant down to bare essentials," Ichigo nodded, flicking switches and easing the throttle down to zero. He looked back over his shoulder to add, "And we'll coast in just like any other derelict."

"Should we send a message to the pirates and the cops?" Kon asked, peering at the communication station.

"No, we can't risk it," Rukia interrupted immediately. "Any comm signal we send might be picked up, and we don't want attract attention."

"The prison ship pulled in enough Hollows to do this," Ichigo agreed, "No telling what might still be in the area."

"So what then? If we're going to shut down the carrier wave drawing them all here, including that Hollow mothership, we need to locate where that prison ship is berthed." Kon tapped his metal fingers against the bezel of the communications station.

"Finding it is only part of the problem," Rukia realized. "Once we do, then what? Destroy it?"

Ichigo shook his head. "No, destroying the ship while it's still docked is out of the question. There might be innocent people onboard it, not to mention that we could damage the docking seal and decompress the whole ring." There was only one remaining course of action. He turned to look over his shoulder, seeing Rukia looking equal parts relieved and apprehensive. She knew what he was going to say just as well as he did. Ichigo turned back at the display of the scarred and blasted station, surrounded by a halo of destroyed and shredded wreckage, but his thoughts were only of the fate of his sisters, father, and friends. "We're going to have to get aboard and decouple it manually."

There was a long pause following Ichigo's proclamation, eventually broken by a harsh burst of laughter from Kon's suit. "Oh man Ichigo, that was a good one. 'Get aboard and decouple it manually,' priceless," the A.I. said, pantomiming wiping a tear from his eye and sighing. "So what's the real plan?"

"That is the real plan," Ichigo ground out.

"Uh huh," Kon said, unconvinced. "That's _crazy,_ Ichigo."

"I know," Ichigo said and Rukia thought there was some sadness in his voice.

Ichigo sat back at his controls and they'd barely traveled another thirty seconds before Kon's voice called out, "Proximity alert." The remains of a massive ship, cracked in half with its conduits and piping torn free, was going to skim near to their starboard side, a chemical fire burning at its depths. They brushed past the empty, destroyed ship and through the canopy they had a clear view down the stack of inner decks, the light through the tears and holes in the hull sliding like pale daggers across its lifeless body. Gently, Ichigo banked and rolled the angular ship past the drifting hulk and jagged shards of metal surrounding it, onward into the field of dead ships.

Shifting a tucking the ship as little as possible, the four ships eased their way through the debris. Finally moving in closer and taking a moment, Rukia and Ichigo both looked out through the canopy above them, the stars slowly wheeling as the ship made its haphazard, tumbling way towards the station. Like some kind of strange moonrise, the station's edge crested the horizon of the canopy and spilled its light down onto the bridge. Unable to remain at her station, Rukia slipped around the console and onto the edgewalk, coming close enough to Ichigo to let her fingers find his own, lacing together as the station rose fully into view.

While the long range optics display made it clear that the station had been attacked, it was another thing to see it up close, first hand. The totality of the devastation seemed almost impossible. As enormous as the station was, it seemed that no square meter of it was unmarred. Lines of laser burns and scorch marks stood out like cuts and bruises upon grey-bronze skin. Its once gleaming panels were torn into gaping fissures, clawed… or chewed, open. It had been savaged, brutally, and the fate of its occupants was left unknown.

The four ships slid in close to the station without so much as a puff of a directional thruster or main engine wash to give away their position. Barely a few meters away from the skin of the station, so close they could peer into the facing viewports, they dared to use their braking thrusters to bring them to a halt. Any thermal or electromagnetic radiation from the engines or vents now would be undetectable against the station's own, especially seeing how damaged it was. The only thing that would give them away was direct, visual confirmation of their ships powered up and under control, but it was a chance they'd have to take.

With a press of a button on his wingmen panel, Ichigo initialized a comm channel between all four ships and waited for it to resolve. In moments, the three small screens arrayed across the front of the pilot's station lit up with images of Toshiro, Renji and Uryu. "Alright," Ichigo began. "The plan is pretty simple, there's a prison ship docked to the station that's sending out a carrier wave that Hollow's are sensitive to. Whatever happened here, this attack on the station, I'm telling you it's just the appetizer. If that carrier wave keeps drawing in the mothership, I can only guess what the main course will be. The Zai Shipyards, the Miner's Coalition ore facility, maybe even Muujo itself." Ichigo raked his fingers through his hair. "Our first step is to stop it from getting any further into the system."

"Then what?" Hitsugaya crossed his arms over his chest, looking intently at him through the vid-comm.

Ichigo's frown deepened. "That'd be the second step," he said finally. Toshiro's face remained impassive, but Ichigo could tell he was skeptical. It was the best Ichigo could do, though, and Toshiro knew it. Still, Ichigo appreciated the white-haired detective's silence on the topic, there was no sense in souring morale over doubts and concerns over situations no one could change.

"How are we getting aboard the prison ship?" Renji asked. "I never thought I'd say that," he muttered, "More concerned about staying _off._ "

"Low powered flight over the surface of the station, heading to the North end where the naval sector is. Until we have a solid fix on the ship we'll have to rely on optical targeting systems. Watch for jags and debris on the way there, and once we find it, E-V-A to a free airlock on the target," Ichigo replied. "Without a proper way to shield the source of the carrier wave, our only option is to decouple, tow, and then scuttle the ship."

"That'd qualify as destruction of Colonial Navy property," Uryu mentioned.

"Does that mean you want out?" Ichigo asked.

"On the contrary," Uryu replied darkly, "I'd be happy to set the overrides myself, once we get there."

Ichigo chuckled mirthlessly. "Alright, let's get moving."

Silently, a puff from the directional thrusters sent the long black form of the _Zangetsu_ angling in close and skimming along a few meters above the station, flanked on either side by the _Hyorin Maru_ and _Zabi Maru_ while the _Longbow_ covered their rear. Their shadows slid along the ruined grey-bronze skin beneath them, dipping down into the canyons that had been torn into the hull plating and ghosting over the cratered pits of projectile impacts and debris collisions. The surface of the station spread out around them like a battlefield covered in metal, sensor arrays spiked from the surface at odd angles like flattened grass, and air continued to leak from the cracks in the hydroponics bays that rose like rolling hills far off their side.

"I'm getting structural cohesion reports from monitors across the station," Kon spoke from the speakers in the bridge, his voice cutting into the silence. "Most of the direct damage was contained by the level one hull, habitat decks and populated areas appear to be mostly intact."

"What's the percentage of decompression across those areas?" Ichigo asked.

"Twenty-three percent," Kon reported. He had never sounded so much like a machine before.

Nearly a quarter of the station had lost full or partial atmosphere, the realization sickened Ichigo. Coupled with the fact that a section with an intact atmosphere did not necessarily mean it was breathable; fires, chemical leaks, particulate aeration, any of which could choke any survivors, and Ichigo felt himself growing not sad, but angry. His eyes were drawn to the main docking rings looming above them, their arches spanning the night sky as they curved from one end of the station's horizon to the other. His father's ship was docked up there somewhere, along with countless others. Part of him desperately wanted to pull up on the controls and cruise recklessly along the massive ring's exterior, searching for the _Masaki_ to see if they escaped the attack, but he knew he couldn't. Too many were counting on them, he told himself again, settling his eyes back down to the far edge of the station.

"We need to pass all three of the main rings to get to the Navy's section of the station," Ichigo said, forcing himself to say their objective aloud. The prison ship had to be docked at one of the Navy's secured docking points, correctional and military craft were forbidden from docking at the civilian rings. Rukia pulled up a magnified overlay on the canopy, zooming to peer into the darkness. Way ahead of them down at the end was the Naval sector, where all ships with official Colonial Navy commissions docked. Studying the display, Ichigo didn't see Rukia shift her eyes, but he did hear her caught breath.

"Hot contact," Rukia said evenly into the shared comm, her thumb holding down the control but her eyes never leaving the flicker of motion above them. Heart pounding but her voice flat, she continued speaking into the comm channel, relaying the bearing of the target to the other three ships.

Confused for a moment, Hitsugaya bent forward in the vid-screen, peering out his own ship's viewport. "But that'd be directly abov-" His voice cut out as he immediately began ordering his own crewmen to various stations.

Ichigo craned his head back to look directly up as well, their ship moving into shadow as they gently glided beneath the first of the huge docking rings. Rising up on either side were the docking ring lift towers, huge structures housing freight transfer systems and cargo bays and twin level transit lanes connecting the rings to the central station, but were dwarfed by the docking rings they held aloft. And there, far above them at the point a spoke might connect to a wheel, a silvery shape hung nearly motionless. Covered in plates of scalloped, organic looking metal, it could have been as lifeless as the debris around them if not for the four segmented tentacles methodically shearing metal from the station and drawing the pieces back inside it.

"It does not seem to have noticed us," Uryu said over the comm, keeping his eyes on the Hollow.

"Its sensors are probably just as blinded as ours," Rukia added, "I can't get a soft-lock, there's too much interference from the station."

"We're still vulnerable to visual confirmation, so let's not do anything to attract attention," Toshiro suggested.

"Stay on course," Ichigo said with finality, "But stay alert, where there's one, there's bound to be more."

The four ships neared the end of the station without incident. Daring to slow their approach as they neared the natural lip that would take them towards the Navy's secure docks, they edged up near the crest to try to get a visual on the area below.

"Hang on a sec," Renji called through the comm, "I have something that might help."

Ichigo, seeing Hitsugaya's skeptical frown, looked out the side of the canopy to see a thin aerial rising into position above the _Zabi Maru_. Standing at an impressive height, Ichigo was jus beginning to wonder what it was when Renji answered for him.

"It's a whisker array," the red-haired man said, patching the sensor readings through the comm's data level and feeding it to everyone's telemetry processors.

"Used by pirates to find vulnerable ships without exposing themselves," Toshiro supplied, turning a glare at Renji, earning a noncommittal shrug in response. Toshiro didn't have enough evidence to make a piracy charge stick, but that didn't mean he couldn't needle the tattooed man it in hopes he'd admit something.

"I have a lock on the ship," Kon said, breaking into the channel and resetting their targeting locks on it.

"And I'm getting some more Hollow signatures," Rukia said. The signals were jumbled and hard to resolve, but there were definitely Hollows. Together, the four ships slipped over the natural lip and made their way down the naval sector of the station, closing in on the prison ship.

Still a ways off, they came to an abrupt halt. "You were saying something about there being more?" Renji muttered into the comm channel.

The prison ship was there, a huge hulk of forbidding-looking steel-grey metal, and moored to the Navy's docking facility and apparently undamaged. It was also surrounded by at least thirty Hollow ships, all of them hovering down low to the surface of the station or sedately circling the prison ship. Though he told himself he was imagining it, Ichigo could almost feel the tension rolling off each of those ships.

 _They're waiting, all right,_ the oily voice said, echoing and slithering through Ichigo's mind with a black glee. _It's coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop it._

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked, somewhat concerned. "You feel alright?"

"Yeah, fine," he replied a little harsher than he intended. With effort, he banished the unnatural presence to the back of his mind, his eyes firmly shut. When he looked back out the canopy, all he saw were dozens of silvery Hollow ships, no two alike, and all of them standing between him and the prison ship. "There's no way we can get through all those, they'd tear us to pieces."

Hitsugaya leaned closer to the vid-screen, a calculating look on his face. "So we won't be able to dock to the prison ship directly, that doesn't mean we can't still get onboard it from the inside. We just need a nice, out of the way place to get inside the station."

Rukia exchanged a knowing glance with Ichigo. "I know just the place."

* * *

Ichigo removed the masked helmet hanging from the handlebar as he stood, turning it over in his hands. Hesitating before slipping it over his head, he looked around the seemingly empty cockpit, taking in the banks and panels of switches, knobs and dials. The soft glow of the vid-screens added a bit of color to the dull light around him, reflecting off the station to filter in through the canopy. "Kon, come with me." Without waiting for an answer, Ichigo began walking towards the bridge door.

Following Ichigo through the blastdoor, Kon cocked his head at the young man's back. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

"No, not yet." Ichigo turned back to face him, the pair of them standing on the transverse deck that stretched above the loading bay. "I need you to do something."

"I meant what I said when I told you I didn't recognize your authority," Kon groused half-jokingly, somewhat put off by Ichigo's rather serious demeanor. There was a sudden shift in Kon's posture, as if something had just occurred to him. "No, no way. You can't tell me what to do."

The problem with dealing with A.I.s was that their cerebral processing cores ran on some of the most powerful computing hardware in the system: quantum MPU lattices, and that it made them difficult to surprise. Kon already knew what Ichigo was going to ask, but then again, it also made Kon predictable. "You know the plan, Rukia and I, along with the others from the _Longbow, Zabi Maru, and Hyorin Maru_ , are going down to the station to get to the prison ship."

"The station that has been blasted to shit, decompressed, and chewed up by hundreds of alien ships, yeah I know."

"Yes," Ichigo continued, reining in his temper. "The station's in bad shape on the outside, who knows what it's going to be like inside. Not that it matters because even if station's infonet terminals were working, I'd be unable to use anything above level one because my security token has been corrupted."

Kon crossed his arms. "It was your decision to use that bio-mod link Urahara came up with, you should have known it would've invalidated your token."

"I'll deal with that later, but listen, if we're going to pull this off we're going to need someone doing digital recon. The station maps will be down, compression seals will be locked, blastdoors will be closed."

"Is that what this is all about? No way, I spent too long as a glorified phone operator on that relay station to do it again, even for you."

Undaunted, Ichigo went on. "I'm asking you to jack yourself into the ship's comm system, find an open uplink to the station and be our eyes and ears through the station's monitor net. This is your chance to help," Ichigo suggested, inwardly hoping Kon would agree. He held one last card and while he didn't want to play it, he would if he had to.

"I did help!" Kon snapped, turning away and pacing the engine room, "I did all your heavy lifting aggregating and filtering your ship-hunting data."

"Yes, so now we know the _Hueco Mundo_ is the source of the problem, but the problem still needs solving."

"Why?" Kon argued, "Why do you need to do it? You want me to help you and Rukia run off and get yourselves killed so badly? Well _forget_ it. Why can't you two just run off and be happy together and get away from this whole thing? Huh, tell me why it has to be _you_."

"Because no one else can." Ichigo could feel his temper rising, Kon was going to force his hand.

Kon shook his big armored head in refusal. "You don't know what you're asking. That's all colonial fiber, who knows what's running on station's network. I'm an A-I, Ichigo. I've spent my life keeping off those lines. I'll be detected and the M-I-C will know exactly where I am."

"I know exactly what I'm asking. I'm asking you to take a risk, to help us set this right, to do what no one else can."

"I saved your dumb ass from dying of hypoxia after you almost got blown up! Isn't that enough?"

Ichigo's face darkened. "And you think that makes you and her even?"

Kon spun to glare at Ichigo, bristling and angry. "Don't you dare…"

"LIRIN SACRIFICED HERSELF TO SAVE THE REST OF US!" Ichigo shouted, fury contorting his features.

"SHE DIDN'T GIVE ME ENOUGH TIME," Kon roared back at him, "I JUST… I j-just needed eight tenths of a second more…"

"And she knew it," Ichigo said quietly. "She had it figured out and she did what she had to, because she knew no one else could. What good is her sacrifice if we can't stop this," and he waved his arm indicating the destruction wrought upon the station, "From happening again?" A coldness settled in the pits of Ichigo's soul, knowing he could not take his next words back. "How could you live with yourself, if you don't even try?"

"You'd use her memory against me, would you?" Kon said tightly. "Use her to get what you want, just like you'd use me."

"This isn't what I _want_ ," Ichigo made plain. "But yes, if this is the _shit_ it takes to save the people I love, then I'll do anything I have to." Ichigo felt a presence at his back but refused to break eye contact with Kon.

Kon stood rigid, his mechanical hands clenching tight. "You asshole. 'The ends are gonna justify the means' are they? You stay on that track and it's going to cost you more than you'll ever imagine. Oh I'll do what you want, but once this is over," he took a step closer to Ichigo, "I don't ever want to see you, again." Kon turned and left, his feet pounding angrily into the decking.

Rukia slipped around him and made to follow the furious A.I. but was stopped by a gentle hand on her shoulder. She caught the look on his face, somber but resolute. Another casualty, and she knew there'd be more to come. "He's more than just a machine, Ichigo."

"I know," Ichigo admitted. "But I still know which buttons to press." He was holding his helmet in his hands, his fingers absently tracing the contours of the mask. Ichigo gave himself a shake and turned towards her. "You heard all that?"

She nodded mutely. She could see from Ichigo's face that he felt the need to explain, but couldn't find the words. Unsure of her herself, she reached a tentative hand up to touch his face, smoothing her thumb along the line of his cheek. He relaxed slightly under her touch and Rukia was relieved, outward displays of affection were something neither of them had much experience with. The moment ended and Rukia withdrew her hand, taking a breath and setting her mind back on the mission.

Ichigo was staring back at the eye-visor of his helmet as she took her own out from under her arm, preparing to pull it down over her head, when she heard him say very clearly, "The Ministry of Population Control. We're going to need to do something about them too." He gave her a significant glance as he headed for the stairs leading to the loading bay floor, pulling his helmet on as he went.

Rukia stared blankly at him as he walked by. What could they talk about, she thought, the only thing they'd need to discuss is if they found out he'd been genetically bio-modified by Urahara's link. Nanite based bio-mods like neural links or her own micro-muscle control system were perfectly legal because they were essentially just machines, tools for you to use. It was the bio-mods that recombined your DNA, the kind Ichigo now had, that were illegal. Neither of them had said it outright but they both knew that if Ichigo's new link was discovered, they'd sterilize him to prevent fabricated DNA from making its way into the gene pool. The only other thing the MPC did was issue licenses for procreation…

Rukia nearly dropped her helmet. Her hands suddenly numb and shaky, she was momentarily too stunned to move. Surely… _surely_ he wasn't suggesting what it seemed like. There had to be some other explanation, she told herself. He knew she was from the Outer Orbits, and she'd been young and orphaned during the occupation. Applying for an MPC license would've been pointless, he had to have known that.

Would he? He was the son of a doctor who'd made rounds at the belts and Rim, backwater colonies and undocumented settlements. Places beyond the long arm of the Colonial Government and any of its Ministries. Places where you didn't necessarily need a license… He might not know… Rukia jammed the helmet back down over her head, her face set like stone. If he didn't know she'd set him straight with enough force for him to never bring it up again.

She met back up with him in the darkened loading bay, standing alone in front of the access doors in the floor. The green status lights came on as the engineering blastdoor, bridge blastdoor and crew compartment blastdoor all slid and bolted shut, sealing the loading bay. Descending the steps, she could hear her own breathing inside her pressurized flightsuit and helmet as the air was quickly evacuated from the room, the lights shifting from green to amber. Coming to a stop on the opposite side of the large bomb-bay style floorlock door, the light finally switched to red signifying full depressurization, Ichigo standing before her, his own flightsuit and masked helmet awash in the crimson light and deep black shadows.

She glanced away as he turned towards her, stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze. While his mask didn't bother her anymore the memories he'd inadvertently dredged up did, and she found staring at the bay doors to be rather than look at him. She didn't see him press a control on the loadmaster console, but she did watch a gulf opened between the two of them, the complex machinery turning and shifting as the floorlock seals withdrew and the doors slid silently open. A thin line of pale light speared up from the seam between the doors, turning swiftly to a harsh glare as the bay doors swung down and apart, filling the room with the gray-white reflection off the surface of the station. The light was a lie, she sighed, blinking away the brightness. There was nothing but utter emptiness around her, she told herself as the bay doors shuddered and locked into place.

Daring to look back up at Ichigo's face, she noticed that the milky light had washed out the color of his mask, turning the ceramic composites to bleached bone, the glossy eyepiece visor lost to shadow. He had been looking down from through the open bay doors, leaning out over the yawning gap at their feet when he moved his head up to look at her. Through their open comm link, she heard the raspy slithering sound of his air system over the channel before he spoke.

"You ready to do this?"

Rukia took a deep breath and focused her attention on their objective. She couldn't afford to be bothered by whatever awful memories Ichigo's words might have brought up. She was a soldier, a covert operative of the Colonial Navy's G-13 Special Forces, and it was time to act like it. She crossed her arms in front of her, nodded to Ichigo, and stepped out into the void above the open bay doors.

Ichigo leaned out and watched her fall away from the ship, the minimal A-Grav giving her enough force to send her across the dozen meters down to the surface of the station, but not enough to injure as she landed. He watched her for a moment as she gently coasted downwards, the sunslight glinting from her helmet and flightsuit, before he crossed his own arms before following her out into the emptiness. In less than a moment he felt the pull of the A-Grav vanish as he dropped from the ship, leaving its effective range and slipping into a gentle, weightless descent.

Though he knew it was irrational, he still spread his arms out to try to steady himself as a feeling began to grip him, the sensation of sinking deeper and deeper into a shadowy abyss. The light was poor here in this section of the station and came at sharp angles, filling the area full of stark delineations between suns-lit surface and pitch-black shadow. They'd left the battle-scarred and now nearly unrecognizable sections of the station's habitat column and docking rings behind to come here, Ichigo reflected, and while it wasn't nearly as damaged, from this perspective the area was just as alien.

For all the time he'd spent off-planet, he hadn't performed much in the way of EVA at all so he expected the notion that the only thing between him and the vacuum of space was his sealed flightsuit was something that would prey on his mind. Expecting a natural fear response as he gently glided through the reach of space between ship and station, Ichigo was wholly unprepared at the degree of serenity and peace that settled over him. Everywhere he looked, the majesty of the starscape surrounded him, each star seemingly closer than ever before, filling him with a breathless wonder and hinting at ancient, fantastic secrets. For a fraction of a moment, he felt seized by the insane urge to unseal his mask and bask in the glow of their light full on his face.

"-should be near the, hey are you listening to me?"

Blinking, Ichigo snapped his gaze down at the sound of Rukia's voice through his comm. She'd landed as gentle as a feather right where they'd intended, one of the old traversal decks designed for shuttling unprocessed ore and construction crews across the exterior of the station. Her boots were mag-sealed to the deck and a neural display panel was glowing in her hands but she had aimed a stern look upwards at him. Ichigo didn't have time to properly set his feet before he came down hard, his boots clanking onto the walkway surface with a jolt and forcing him almost to his knees.

"With landings like that, remind me again why _you_ fly the ship?" she admonished, letting the display vanish.

"Because," Ichigo began gruffly, standing back up. "Landing is for people who're grounded. I'd rather just keep flying." Looking star-ward he just managed to see the bay doors of the _Zangetsu_ closing up, the black of the ship quickly lost amid the star strewn reaches of space. As he watched, a small spark of light blazed from the ship's engines and its angular form knifed through the night, followed closely by the three other, far more visible ships.

"I was under the impression we had to gain access to the prison ship, so what may I ask, are we doing all the way down here?" Detective Hitsugaya asked over their connected comm channel, "Nothing in this area has been operational for years and there must have been a dozen different docking points on the way." As always, his voice and manner were just as crisp and professional as ever, in contrast to his youthful appearance, but even Ichigo could see that for some reason, the white-haired detective seemed particularly on edge.

Ichigo turned to see the detectives, both wearing the distinctive blue and white softsuits of the patrol force, moving towards them. Behind them were Uryu in his traditional softsuit of the QNC, and Renji in a softsuit he'd obviously pieced together, all four of them looking somewhat out of place.

"Yeah Ichigo, so now we've got half a busted up station between here and there, and I don't know if you've looked recently, but this station is bigger than most cities where I'm from," Renji groused, moving with the odd, shuffling gait required to keep one boot planted firmly on the surface. "And we still need to get, y'know, _inside_ the station."

"Using any of those docking points would have been too risky, we're trying to remain inconspicuous, so that's why we're here," Rukia answered both Renji and Toshiro. Stepping off the decking, she was careful with her footing as she made her way to one of the huge ore loading bay locks. Lifting a panel and placing the top of her gloved hand against the link pad, she bridged the circuit to the ore loading facility and began its cycling process. Beside her, the huge doors unlocked and parted, and from within a familiar landing pad came rolling out, secured to the top of the loading belt. The surface of it worn and strut-marred, the sight of it brought back bittersweet memories of her beloved ship, but she marshaled her emotions before turning to the others. "Under normal circumstances I wouldn't be divulging classified information to just anyone," her eyes flicked to Ichigo, "But these circumstances aren't normal. We'll enter the station here, at the G-13's covert operations service bay. Let's go."


	28. (Re)Animated

The massive outer door sealed up behind them as the six of them stood still and silent, bathed by the harsh red light of the status indicator inside the large freighter lock. The last time Rukia had been here she had been seated within the cockpit of the _Sode no Shirayuki,_ a cut across her eyebrow, her ship barely spaceworthy and Ichigo sitting in the pilot's seat for the first time. Crossing her arms with a sigh of nostalgia, she toed her boot along one of the many scuff marks atop the well-worn landing pad and wondered if she'd ever land here again.

The faint hiss of air being pumped into the lock distracted her from her quiet introspection and triggered the light to turn yellow. As she patiently waited for the pressure to equalize, she noticed an odd haze in the air around them, the whole process seeming to take longer than she remembered.

"This air looks funny," Rangiku spoke up, indicating the muzzy yellow of the indicator light.

Before she could reply, the light switched to green and Rukia knew something was wrong the moment the loader doors parted before them. Only a handful of lights came on as the landing pad slid in from the giant airlock, doing little to banish the murky gloom that had settled throughout the hangar. The huge doors slid closed behind them and the massive tread shuddered to a stop, but Rukia remained still, wary.

"Atmosphere pressure is at seventy-three percent of nominal, breathable but polluted with… something. Probably halocarbons and fluoropolymers. I'd keep your helmet on, just in case," Toshiro said, flicking on the lights set into the sides of his faceplate. More lights joined his, their beams lancing out into the darkened hangar room.

Rukia's own headlamps lit up as she slowly stepped down from the platform, the darkness retreating in a narrow column wherever she turned her head. Initial feelings of familiarity swiftly vanished as the lights swept around, flashing over what should have been recognizable, yet wasn't, setting her teeth on edge. She gave an inward start, her muscles remaining in perfect control, as a muffled crack of breakers from far off sent the lights above fluttering weakly. The effect was even more unsettling as they did not so much as banish the inky darkness as turn into a muddy yellow brown.

"This is your top secret service bay?" Renji drawled, the sound in her helmet breaking the stillness that had settled around them. "Oh yeah, I can see why you left piracy behind, if I'd only known _all this_ could be mine."

Her old hangar had been gutted. Stripped bare in apparent hast, the large storage system that held components for her ship had been cleaned out, other compartment doors in the walls and bays yawning open and dark, even the heavy fabricator and loader assemblies had been unbolted from the floor and removed, leaving that odd sense of vacant emptiness in its place. The service cradle at the far end sat lonely in the murky, meager light and scattered all around them were fallen bits of complex parts, splashes of machinery fluids and discarded packing materials; the harried clutter of rapid egress.

"They left in a hurry," Rukia said, choosing to ignore Renji. Possessed of sudden purpose, she strode across the hangar and scaled the steps up to where Urahara's office was, leaving the others in her wake. One look was all it took and she retreated out to the landing to see the others descending from the pad to the service bay floor. All but Ichigo. There were no lights shining from his helmet and the dark of his armored flightsuit seemed to drink what little light there was. Arms crossed pensively, his head swiveled up to face her, the mask of his helmet glinting darkly in the low light as the eye-like slits smoldered with the soft glow of light-amplification. "It's empty, all of it. Everything," she said down to him.

He nodded. "I expected as much. Are the terminals still working at least? Can we get an uplink to Kon from here?"

"Doesn't look like it," Uryu answered, lifting the panel on one of the nearby terminals to inspect it. "The local storage is gone and the hardwires have been cut, these are just dummy terminals now."

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to clean this place out," Toshiro remarked, his tone shifting more towards interested than suspicious.

"The G-13 doesn't really operate through traditional channels," Rukia replied, distracted. From her vantage point she could see there was something odd about the floor, now that everything had been removed. "And Urahara has always taken the 'covert' part of covert ops a few degrees further than most," she went on. There was something definitely wrong with the floor, she could see the hinges and seams where it apparently opened up, leading to some other level below the main hangar. Wondering idly what he'd be using such a space for, Rukia resigned herself to the fact that they didn't have time to investigate some hidden area beneath the service bay. "We need to get moving, the naval sector is a full sixteen klicks from here."

"We'll need transport of some kind, the lanes themselves should still be relatively intact but the station's Transit Authority guide-grid would be offline," Renji said, "So we'll need something with manual control."

Rukia nodded as she came down the steps to the halfway point. "Ichigo, you and Renji go find us an ore tug or something, I know there's an old garage down the way. There's got to be something in there, just so long as it moves."

"I'll go with them," Toshiro volunteered, "The station personnel might be panicking, an official patrol force presence might keep them out of trouble."

"I may be able to do something with these terminals after all," Uryu spoke up, threading a cable from a socket in the side of a console to the computer system secured at his belt. "I have sys-link connectivity here, without having to drop onto the station's wireless. Maybe I can route a comm link back up to the ships."

Rukia nodded as the boys set out to focus on their tasks, Ichigo, Renji and Toshiro slipping out the front door while Uryu sat at a console, his glasses alight with computer readouts. She turned away from them, towards one particular panel set in the wall nearby; there was one more place she needed to check before they could set out on their way across the station. Noticing that Rangiku had fallen into step next to her, Rukia was tempted to say something but fell silent after a glance at the statuesque detective. The carefully constructed look of blithe, innocent interest she'd maintained on Junrinan Two had faded somewhat, stress evident in the shrewd, wary flicks of her eyes around the service bay.

"So. Aliens, then?" Rangiku asked as they came to a stop at one specific wall. She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned heavily into the wall, turning her silvery eyes down to the slighter woman before her.

Rukia paused to give her a look back, gauging the seriousness of her comment. The covert portion of the war the G-13 had been quietly waging against the Hollow threat was essentially over. They'd massed in unprecedented numbers and been spurred to attack by whomever had assembled the those artifacts, and very soon everyone, everywhere would be seeing the news coverage of the destruction at Karakura Station. The entire system would all be asking that very same question and the prospect was might happen next was singularly terrifying. No wonder the Patrol Force detective looked a little out of her depth.

Clearing her throat a bit, she turned back to the panel. "Yeah, aliens."

Rangiku gave a musical laugh that echoed of both mirth and resignation. "I bet a lot of people are going to be relieved."

That caught Rukia's attention. "Relieved?" Her fingers had found the contact plate below the panel but had frozen before touching it.

"Yeah, you would not believe how many people have been convinced they've seen something out there, 'blacker than black' they call it sometimes, 'but glints like silver'." Rangiku shook her head, hopelessness weighing down her shoulders. "We said they've been staring at the black too long, or their own reflections off the viewports. How stupid were we?"

"The official line from the government is that there have been no documented cases of contact with an extrasolar lifeform, you've just been going by the book, Detective."

"But we can't trust the book, can we?" Rangiku's face was soft but her gaze had hardened to steel.

The implications of the question she'd asked and the obvious answer that sprang to mind gave Rukia pause. "No, you can't," she replied finally.

"What about you, and your little fly-boy with the creepy mask? Can we trust you?"

"We're all going to need to work together to get this done," she supplied, turning away to hide the fact that she hadn't truly answered the question. "The more informed everyone is, the better." Rukia pressed her finger to the plate and the panel slid open, revealing the interior of what would have been a well-stocked armory cabinet replete with a dazzling array of weaponry.

Had it not been empty.

Rukia bit her lip to keep from swearing but still pounded a hand against the panel door. "They must've emptied it when they left for Pendulum," she fumed, unconsciously drumming her other hand against the empty holster on her weapon harness.

"You know, it used to be so easy," Rangiku muttered, turning back to lean on a railing. "Wake up, go to work, catch bad guys – no offense, hit the bar, go home. Repeat. Tomorrow was supposed to be the same as yesterday." She watched Rukia slide armory closed without really seeing it. "Now there's aliens and covert operations and war and it's chaos out there now, what the hell are we gonna do now? How do you manage this kind of stuff?"

Rukia turned to the detective and shrugged as she met her eyes. "It's still the same, Rangiku," she said, taking a risk by using her first name, "It's just a different kind of bad guy."

"I hope you're right, I don't think I could take any more surprises." She pushed off the wall and offered Rukia a more determined look. "Here. If we're gonna stop the bad guys, then we'd better get to work."

Rukia looked to see Rangiku draw her service weapon and hold it out to her, grip first. It wasn't quite the same caliber as her previous weapons, designed for normal range, non-augmented strength, but it was better than nothing and would fit her holster. Gingerly, she took the weapon but set a questioning angle to her eyebrows.

"Relax, I have another," Rangiku waved away. "Accessories make the outfit, after all," she said with a wink.

Rukia nodded absently as she checked the breach, magazine and safety before slipping it into the holster at her back. Walking towards the hangar door, she realized the place was now just as vacant and defunct as the rest of the old ore processing bays on this level. Her ship was gone, her service bay was gone, her once tenuous position among the royalty was no doubt gone, and after all that had happened there would be no way the G-13 could continue as it had. The only thing remaining was waiting for her outside the service bay door and had hopefully found some way to cross the sixteen kilometers of station infrastructure between the southern industrial sector and the northern Naval sector. Without a backward glance, she turned to head to the door and left the empty hangar behind.

There had always been an odd, eerie stillness throughout the industrial sector for as long as Rukia had been stationed here, but as she stepped out of the service bay's main door a new type of oppressive gloom had crept into the abandoned area. The cold, inert metal environment was as lifeless as it ever was, and yet, the power fluctuations let the darkness seep through the cramped lanes and narrow corridors like a living, searching thing. There were no sounds of life here, no thrum of power or the brushing of the scrubbers, only a still and expectant hush.

On this level, stretching out to either side was the long space-facing row of old, abandoned ore processing bays. Like a giant artery, the old manual control transit lane connected them all to the maze of processing plants and refineries deeper in the industrial sector, its surface marred by years of scuffs from transport carts, loader frames and grav-sleds as they worked the mined asteroid material. Rukia was about to speak, wondering where the others had gone to, when the failing lights gave a sharp, rippling flash down the corridor, punctuated by the crack of breakers from overhead. Disconcertingly out of sync, the silent flashes lit the area from a dozen different directions before the bursts echoed out into the darkness.

Her hand unconsciously gripping the weapon at her back, she released her breath in a huff as she pushed it back into the holster, the fading echoes ringing mournfully through the pipes and conduits. Clearing her eyes from the afterimage, something niggled at Rukia's subconscious, a shape that shouldn't be there and she immediately swung her helmet lights up to scan the piping above. The light revealed nothing but the expected and feeling foolish, Rukia couldn't be sure it wasn't her imagination playing tricks on her, but now that she was concentrating she couldn't shake the sensation that she was being… _observed_.

"Hey, Rukia!" Ichigo called, a low rumble beginning to fill the air. The odd sensation forgotten, she turned towards his voice to see that they'd apparently been able to get an old service hauler running. The newer ones had all incorporated advances in I-Grav stabilization systems, but this was one of the older, less complicated and more reliable ones fitted with a high torque power system and drive train connected to actual wheels. Rukia shouldn't have been surprised that this was the one he'd pick, but still watched dubiously as they drove it down the lane to the front of the hangar, the whole thing rocking on its suspension. Big, noisy, and thick of frame; inconspicuous, this was not.

The squat, heavy-duty ore hauler rumbled to a stop in front of them, the lights across the top of the cab spearing out into the dark as the door opened, a simple metal ladder folding down into place. Peering down from the open cargo compartment in the back, Toshiro leaned out a hand to help Rangiku up while Rukia scaled the metal rungs to where Ichigo was sitting. "This isn't what I expected when I told you to go find transportation," she said to him, cresting the lip and ducking into the cab. She was irrationally relieved to find that he'd removed his mask and helmet, unruly orange spikes poking in odd directions across his head.

"I know," he replied, "But since the station's Transit Authority is probably in chaos and the nav-grid is offline, we figured we'd need something that was manual only."

"It's illegal to take something like this on the commuter lanes," Rukia remarked with a smirk, buckling in beside him.

"Better tell Toshiro to add it to the list of charges against us," Ichigo said back with a negligent wave of his hand, a smile at the corners of his mouth.

He put the hauler in gear and sent it lurching forward, towards the transit gate. The lane surface had fallen to disrepair as the sector became less and less used, and they crested the interchange at a slow pace, moving from the old, cramped corridors of the processing section and out into the newer, main habitat. Years ago it had just been one of the many ore processor installations floating in the Rukongai Asteroid Belt, but as the population demanded and the economy enabled it had been expanded considerably. In its present incarnation, Karakura Station was home to 3.5 million people and was the single largest man-made pressurized structure in the system, the majority of that consisting of the station's main habitat column. The habitat was very obviously an unparalleled feat of structural engineering, but to everyone who lived there, it was simply a city that had been rolled up into a cylinder that was 6.5 kilometers in diameter and more than 10 kilometers long.

Ichigo was used to the place by now, living in space inured a person to the most bizarre and non-sensical environments possible, places where the concepts of up and down changed wildly depending on where you were, and places where horizons didn't exist, the ground just continued sloping upwards forever. During the hours of metric night when the centerline illumination system was dimmed, the lights of the buildings could give a false sense of starscape. During the day he'd sometimes see visiting planetsiders become so disoriented by the city hanging above them that station officials often cautioned them to remain inside.

As such, Ichigo didn't think much of the darkness that greeted them as they made the hauler left the interchange gate and took the lane fork that hugged the column's circular 'side', travelling down the gently sloping lane to the city's surface. It must have been night on the station, he reasoned, concentrating on keeping the hauler moving steadily, and it was only Rukia's gasp of surprise and mingled horror that he spared a glance in her direction. Her gaze riveted to the scene beyond him, he followed her eye-line out the side window to take in the city proper, and nearly had to stop the hauler.

The station was burning. Spread all across city were luminous points of orange and red, stark against the darkness, sending thick plumes of acrid smoke up towards the centerline. Coiling and swirling in the strange air currents created by the rotation of the station, the smoke had permeated the massive habitat, reaching into the cab of the hauler even at this distance to gag them with the stink of heavy chemicals and grit. Less than a quarter of the main lights were on, and those that still functioned shined like old bruises, their light dulled by yellow and black haze.

Fire.

On the station.

Ichigo shook himself away from the spectacle and focused his attention back on the transit lane. He guessed it must have worse than he though if the station's suppression system couldn't handle it, although based on what he'd seen on the outside he supposed he really shouldn't be surprised. Still, he thought with another brief look, the station was on fire and they were driving right down into it.

There were thousands of different ways to die out here in space, and while atmospheric decompression was usually at the top of most anyone's list as the likeliest, opinions differed on which was actually the worst. The trouble was that most planetsiders thought suffocating in space would be like drowning, choking and gasping desperately for air, conscious the entire time. Spacers knew better and Ichigo knew first-hand. Pure vacuum makes the lungs work in reverse, pulling the oxygen from the bloodstream. Soft tissues expand as bodily fluids turn to gases, and oxygen deprivation quickly robs you of higher brain functions. You ultimately lose consciousness, a kind of mercy really, because you just sort of slip off to sleep and never wake up.

Fire though, spacers know to fear fire. Planetside, fire has been tamed, controlled, domesticated. Out in space, fire can hungrily consume every whiff of oxygen it can find, clawing its way over composite polymers and stripping them of flammable material, melting and searing and boiling through volatile chemicals, leaving nothing but poison and ruin in its wake. The vacuum of decompression is just that, it's _nothing_ , but fire… There is an ageless, basic terror there, a gut-level instinct that speaks in no uncertain terms that something has gone totally out of control.

It was near the bottom of the sloping transit lane that connected the industrial sector to the habitat surface that they encountered their first real issue. Slowing the hauler to a rumbling stop, Ichigo looked out at the multi-leveled transit lane system that threaded through the city with a sigh. The highest level, T-Level 1, was the massive triple helix shaped main artery that looped around and back high above the habitat's city connecting major destination hubs, but even from here he could see it had fractured and cracked apart in a dozen different places. The pylons that held it aloft stood like crooked teeth, their tops jutting into the filthy smoke and massive sections of lane surface lying crashed to the ground around them. Directly in front of them, a fallen mag-lev rail had landed like a spear, its heavy point driving down through the surface level in the middle of the lane like some kind of macabre warning sign.

As he crept the hauler along through the muted yellow light and murky smoke, Ichigo could see other buildings had faired better and some worse. Shards of glassite crunched beneath the sturdy wheels.

"We'll stick to surface lanes and T-Level Two, the Helix is ruined and the sub-level is probably caved in," Ichigo said, seeing Rukia nod absently in agreement.

"I can't believe this is the same station," she muttered, peering out at the blasted, ruined wasteland that had taken the place of the city she'd come to call home.

At the branch near the bottom of the industrial sector's ramp lay a few abandoned vehicles tilted at odd angles, their frames bent and crumpled where they had hit the lane's surface. Trying to look further, the buildings around them lay dark and silent, the silhouettes of others beyond, edged in that eerie yellow-black light, rose up through the ghostly smoke. A fine layer of ash was beginning to settle over most everything and that triggered something in Rukia's soldier mind.

"No footprints," Rukia noticed.

"Hmm?" Ichigo was trying to weave the wide vehicle between the other hovercars littering the lane.

"There's no footprints," Rukia said again, more emphatically. "There's no… people." Saying it out loud made her realize how strange it seemed. Karakura Station was a lot of things but it was never empty.

"Maybe they managed to escape?" Ichigo's tone was doubtful.

Rukia didn't immediately reply, she had seen the banks of escape pods on the exterior of the station as they'd approached, just like he had. Less than a quarter had been launched.

There was a jolt through the cab as the corner of the hauler's thick fender began to slowly push one of the crashed hovercars out of the way. The scrape of metal across the lane seemed alarmingly loud as it echoed in the still, smoky air, and Rukia found herself subconsciously checking the perimeter for anything that might have been alerted by the sound. Easing their way around the tangle of cars and past the precariously leaning mag-lev rail, shards of glassymer crunching beneath the sturdy tires of the hauler the whole time, Ichigo managed to get them back onto a lane leading further into the city. With a glance to Rukia beside him, he tightened his fingers on the wheel and pressed onward, through the smoke and darkness.

The level of destruction that had befallen the station was almost unconscionable. If the station was damaged on the outside, what had transpired within was no less than some kind of war. Everywhere they looked it was the same story; empty streets, vacant buildings, eerily quiet public spaces and thick, omnipresent and nearly blinding smoke. Visibility wasn't more than thirty meters and the smell was so overwhelming that Toshiro and the others in the back of the bed had put their softsuit helmets back on rather than risk breathing whatever had contaminated the air. Rolling along a sedate pace, they could see sections of the city that had been inexplicably spared and others that had been ravaged by some kind of devastation. The tiered and gleaming web of apartment buildings, commerce complexes, recreation centers, and other offices was tarnished, fractured and broken. Windows were shattered, skywalks and pedestrian levels were strewn with debris, buildings had been looted, and the transit lane system was in crumbling shambles.

Rukia had seen splashes of red here and there, stark against the walls or paving, and had kept an eye out for bodies.

They'd been driving for a short while and she'd yet to see any.

The hauler jerked to a surprisingly quick stop, sending Rukia hard into the restraints. She aimed a 'what-the-fuck-was-that-for?' look at him from where she sat, only to see him quirk an eyebrow back her and jerk his chin at the front windshield, a clear 'check-for-yourself' if she ever saw one. Looking up and out she could see why he had to stop. "Oh."

The smoke was clearer up on the elevated L-2 lane and it was easier to see the damage that surrounded them. Up ahead, like toys tossed carelessly in a pile, at least a dozen more hovercars had crashed, sticking up at odd angles in twist of broken metal and crumpled paneling. Fires were burning in several, shining orange out from shapeless, blackened metal sockets like ever-staring eyes.

Ichigo killed the engine and sat back in his seat just as Renji pulled open the rear hatch and stuck his helmeted head in. The stink of chemical fire wafted in with him and they both grabbed up their own helmets.

"This is what happens when your Transit Authority's grid goes down and auto-nav doesn't work?" Renji asked, surveying the pileup. "You people can't drive for _shit._ "

Ignoring him, Rukia latched her helmet into place and slid open the door. Standing with a foot on her seat and her hand gripping frame, she was able to get a better look at the situation. It did not look good.

"There a way around?" Ichigo asked as she slid back inside.

"No, the lane's collapsed just beyond. The crash must have caused the supports to buckle from below. We'll have to double back," she replied.

"I'll tell the cops and Ishida," Renji said, ducking his head back out of the cab.

Feeling Ichigo's gaze, she managed to sublimate the urge to flinch away from the mask he wore when she turned to face him.

"Rukia…"

She knew the tilt of his head was meant to be querulous, but she couldn't shake how predatory it made him look.

"The crash buckled the supports," he echoed her words, "Or something took out the supports, causing the crash?"

It was a line of reasoning she'd been willfully ignoring since they'd entered the station. "Does it matter?" she grit out, turning to stare out the front windshield. The fires in the hovercar wreck stared back.

"Yes it matters," Ichigo said harshly, keeping his voice low. "What if whatever it was came back, we'd need to be prepared-"

"In case you haven't noticed, Ichigo, we don't exactly have a lot of resources here. There's no way we'd be prepared to deal with some- _thing_ that could take out the L-two supports here _inside_ the station." She crossed her arms with finality. "Besides, it would only worry the others."

"You get to decide that, then?" he spat at her.

She rounded on him, "Just like you and Kon? Why don't you tell me how that uplink is going?" She knew they hadn't reached a working terminal to establish a connection to the AI, but the sting in her words was no less potent.

Ichigo paused a long beat and drew back before huffing out, "Fine."

"Fine," she echoed, tense agitation etched in her posture. "We just need to get across the damned station, that's all that matters."

Ichigo was reaching for the ignition when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. How that single action managed to convey such authority, such necessity to be both silent and still, Ichigo didn't know. He was, however, not surprised to see that it was the young detective, Toshiro, who had done it so effectively.

"Movement," was all Detective Hitsugaya said, his voice barely a whisper over the helmet comms.

Ichigo turned more fully towards the young man, standing in the bed of the large, heavy ore hauler with his hand extended through the window. A tension was in the hand gripping his shoulder, and in the set of his shoulders. Ichigo released the keyring command from his neural link and drew his own hand away from the ignition plate as Rukia shifted to look out the rear viewport as well. "There're people out there?" he asked, as quiet as he could.

"I don't…" Toshiro fell silent, taking a small step and peering through the smoke and darkness out towards the direction they'd come from. His feet shifted a few pebbles and grit left in the hauler bed, and the crunch seemed jarringly loud.

Ichigo could see Renji and Rangiku moving slowly to their feet, leaning over to get a better view through the gloom. Ishida removed what had to be an antique set of binoculars from a compartment on his uniform, fiddled with the optic settings and latched it into place across the faceplate of his suit helmet. Turning to Rukia, he caught her expression and they nodded in unison, each of them unlatching their doors and standing up on the running rails, peering out to see what the others had.

Focusing through the optic sensors of his own helmet, Ichigo swept aside all the floating displays in his vision as he peered through the smoke and murky yellow light. At first he thought it just another dim swirl of sooty smoke in the distance, blurry and indistinct, but it stubbornly persisted, barely more than a vague shadow.

That slowly solidified as it drew closer.

"It must be a survivor," Rangiku said excitedly. She flipped her comm to broadcast and stood, waving and shouting, "HEY! OVER HERE! WE'RE THE POLI-"

"Matsumoto!" Toshiro said, his voice harsh and urgent as he yanked her back down.

"Owww, Captain," she pouted, "What was that for?"

"Something's wrong," Uryu answered instead, his gaze intent through his binoculars.

Ichigo could see he was right, even at this distance. The shadow was moving through the smoke towards them with a stilted, shuffling gait that was chillingly familiar. Swearing under his breath, Ichigo clambered up to the roof of the cab, towering over the others in the back of the hauler, and turned back to face what he dearly hoped was not what he thought it was. "No, no no no," he muttered, adjusting the optics on his mask until the image swam back into focus.

"It's one of them, isn't it Ichigo?" Rukia asked quietly, her voice filling the emptiness that had settled over the group. She saw the shift of his shoulders, the tightening of his posture, his silhouette a dark shape against the muzzy, smoke-yellowed air.

"One of what?" Renji asked into the pregnant pause. He turned from one to the other, his tattooed eyebrows quirked in confusion. The moment dragged out without an answer. "One of _what?_ "

Ichigo's arms fell to his sides, the optics in his visor whirring back to normal and the material of his gloves creaking in protest as his hands curled into fists. "Yeah," he said thickly.

Rukia was down onto the cracked transit lane surface before he had even finished speaking, her borrowed weapon leaping to her hand as she came around the rear of the hauler. She dropped to one knee, her palm cupping the grip of her gun and sighting it as her tactical overlay came flicking into her vision, finger on the trigger and ready to fire. There were voices echoing in her comm, people talking or shouting, but the sounds were far away as she tuned them out, narrowing her focus down the sights of her weapon and centering her breathing.

Tracking the movement through the smoke, her sights never wavered as the figure came limping into view. Her stomach might have heaved up into her throat, she wasn't completely sure, but she was certain her guns sights didn't move a millimeter. She inhaled and tightened her finger, willing herself to see just her target. No horrid details, no mutilated features, no nightmarish implications.

She imagined the gunshot cracking through the hushed stillness, the report ringing out sharp and clear, but all Rukia heard through the padding of her helmet was a muffled thump just as she was knocked heavily to the side, missing her shot.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Eyes wide, she turned to see Detective Hitsugaya standing over her, through the glassite of his helmet his face was the picture of shock and incredulity. Rangiku, Renji and Uryu were staring down at her from the back of the hauler, their own faces a mix of stunned surprise and confused disdain. "No, you don't understand," she tried to explain.

"I understand something isn't right here, but you were about to murder an unarmed civilian," Toshiro exclaimed.

"That's not a civilian!" Rukia shouted back at him, scrambling to her feet. She spun back to her target as it came shambling out of the smoke, moving faster and more determinedly towards them. "Oh God…" she whispered, forced to finally see it clearly.

"Wha… What the hell is that?" Renji said, pointing.

"An experiment gone wrong," Ichigo said, stepping off the top of the cab and into the hauler bed, leaving it bobbing on its suspension, "A product of someone's sick idea and recombinant genetics." As he brushed past the others his thoughts went to his own Hollow-based link and the words left a bad taste in his mouth. Stepping off again to land on the lane surface beside Toshiro, he finished, "Don't be fooled by the fact that it was a human, once. Now it's just a Hollow in a human body instead of a metal ship."

"How… How do you know this?" Toshiro demanded, the young man's face looking paler than usual beneath his helmet face-plate, his expression going from disbelief to shocked revulsion in seconds.

"We've encountered them," Rukia explained, shifting to keep her eyes on the creature coming towards them. "They're violent and savage, and someone sent them to attack us, but something has," she gulped, "Happened to them."

The rattling scrape of metal dragging across durocrete filled the air every time it took a slow, shambling step. Its tattered softsuit was filthy with grime and dried blood, shifting and flapping over a rail-thin body that lurched jerkily in their direction. What little that remained of its mutilated arms hung limply at its sides, the clawed metal jags that had once been fitted to its flesh were gone leaving torn and shredded wounds beneath blackened, bleeding skin. The metal studs and screws protruding from its arms and chest were all that remained of the plates of armor it had bolted to itself while a few errant lengths of wire, still threaded through the skin of its leg, dragged along as it limped closer and closer. However, all Ichigo and Rukia could see were the vein-like growths of tuberous, branching flesh that wove sinuously over and through the abused, mutilated body, pulsing and distended with pus and ichor. To them, it was far too familiar.

"What the _fuck._ " Renji's voice was thick over the comm in her helmet as he clambered down from the hauler bed to stand beside her, next to Ichigo. "That… that can't be real."

The movement must have alerted it somehow, and Rukia saw it freeze for a moment. It had come close enough for her to see the vacant, drawn expression that had frozen onto its gaunt, stiffened face. It shifted rheumy eyes at them, yellowed and bloodshot behind a curtain of lank, stringy hair, and flexed what remained of its fingers, the angry red muscles shifting visibly beneath diseased, puckered skin and Rukia realized it was just now seeing them clearly. Before she could move, it tipped its head back and opened its mouth far wider than nature had ever intended.

Then it screamed.

What issued from its twisted, ruined throat was more than sound, it was raw torment and endless agony made manifest. She could feel it in her helmet, reverberating with an unnatural dissonance and stretching across the silence that had permeated the station. Rukia had seen ships torn apart by ravaging Hollows, had leveled weapons of spectacular destruction at countless enemies with cool professionalism, and had heard the shuddering squeal of tearing metal as she'd put them to use and yet had never, ever, flinched away from anything.

From this, the blackened rattle of this _thing's_ death-cry, from this soul-rending scream of hatred and wrath, from this ululating shriek that cut through the layers of her helmet and suit like it could slice open her ears… Away from this, she flinched. She told herself after that she had simply shifted her weight to her back foot and had drawn an arm up across herself as a defensive measure, but she was thankful for the helmet's reflective glassite shielding her face from the others, her expression fixed into wide-eyed shock and abject horror.

Its mouth open, lathered with blood and drool, it tipped down towards them and onward it rushed, ungainly and loping like some starving beast, closing on them with a frightful speed. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes as she groped helplessly for another weapon, her eyes never leaving it until an explosion cracked the air, more pressure against her suit than actual sound, and a gout of bright blood sprayed from its thigh. The leg suddenly useless, the thing toppled forward and its momentum carried it into an artless sprawl. Scraping and rolling, it slid to a stop barely five meters from them, laying on its back, its neck twisted at on odd angle and its arms seized up above it, the bloody stumps of what were fingers curled into clawed fists. She turned to Toshiro, who eased the gun he'd taken from her down to his side, his face set behind his helmet.

The motion of his arm seemed to release the others, frozen in their initial surprise and shock, they jerked themselves into a burst of adrenalin fueled motion. Rukia found herself cautiously approaching the fallen thing, alongside Toshiro who kept the weapon aimed, and Ichigo, who stared down at it through the eyes of his black mask. She could see there was something in the set of his shoulders, some agitation or anxiety beyond their current situation that occupied his mind. She was seized by the sudden need to know, at her feet the thing rattled out a broken, snarling breath.

"What'd it say?" Toshiro asked quickly, weapon leveled at its chest. It lay unmoving but for the shaky breaths it drew in, the air gurgling in its throat as its ribs moved visibly beneath its taut skin, squeezed tightly by the winding lengths of parasitic flesh.

Rukia crouched carefully down, remaining fully out of direct reach but still close enough for her to see far more than she wished; congealed blood, rusted metal, enough detail to fuel a thousand nightmares. She piped her external mic through the comm connection with a few simple commands without even bothering to focus on the panels glowing in her vision, keeping wary eyes on the thing. The audio in her ears crackled from the dry, sterile sound of their collective breathing into the dull, low sound of air pressure against the mic and the wheezing rattle of breath from what used to be the human in front of her.

"Re… pair… Re… pair…" it panted, a mindless droning chant at the edge of intelligibility.

"Repair? What's that mean?" Toshiro cut in.

"They spoke as if they were still ships when we encountered them before," Rukia explained, "I guess in their minds they still are Hollows."

"Look at them, they think they're broken," Ichigo spoke up, "They're trying to repair themselves."

"How?" Rangiku asked, aghast at the mangled, emaciated body.

"How else would you fix a ship?" he replied, turning to face her. "By getting new parts."

A flicker of movement from the edge of his vision was all the warning he had before something barreled into him like a battering ram. Sudden shouts and cries of alarm rang in his helmet as the others reacted, but all he could hear was the empty, yawning moan of ravenous hunger. Ichigo landed hard on his back, his armored suit taking the brunt of the impact, and it was instinct alone that brought his hands up to grip whatever it was that had hit him. He was thankful they had, because when his vision cleared all he could see was a mass of lank hair, filthy skin and gnashing, grinding teeth mere inches from his mask. Distracted by its eyes as they rolled madly, the Hollow flexing and straining to get closer, Ichigo felt his arms burning with sudden exertion, working to hold back its freakishly strong grip.

"Holy shit!" - "Ichigo!" - "Do something!" all tumbled out of the comms simultaneously. Ichigo tuned them out, teeth clenched and grappling wildly as it twisted its bony stumps of fingers into his flightsuit, just managing to keep his own fingers away from its chomping, bloody teeth. He was just beginning to feel confident in holding it back until it twisted in his grasp, its too-wide open mouth lunging down at him.

With shocking abruptness, his eyes still fixed onto its descending mouth, Ichigo's vision darkened and the sounds from his aural implant disappeared. The moment frozen in time, Ichigo found himself gripping the thing beneath the chin, staring up at its face and trying vainly to hold it off, only to blurrily see everything had halted. His own breathing and the pounding of his heart echoing loudly inside his helmet, and he could just see the face above him, the madness and rage that had twisted its expression slipping away, leaving nothing but a strange sort of emptiness as a trickle of blood descended down his forehead, a drop hanging precariously from his nose.

The monster within the man was gone and Ichigo heaved the slack, dead weight firmly, but gently, off of him. He accepted a hand to help him up as he tried to clear his muzzy vision, wiping his glove across his mask and seeing the red stain it picked up. A motion beside him caught his attention and he saw Toshiro, lowering his gun, staring down at the body behind him. Ichigo very firmly did not turn to look. Shattershot rounds were designed penetrate soft tissue only, dense things like ship hulls or bone were supposed to deflect them. What no one liked to talk about was that no matter how well they were engineered, at extreme close range the physics of a high velocity projectile and will have its say.

His stomach churning a bit, Ichigo discovered it was Rukia who had helped haul him to his feet. Still holding her hand, he turned to see her regarding him with an unreadable look on her face behind the glassite of her faceplate. He was about to speak when a loud chirp from his ear implant made him wince, the comm link prompting for authorization to reestablish itself after being shut off by the gunshot, and he flicked his eyes to approve the connection. In between the moments, there, in the shadow of the space between heartbeats, he thought he heard something else. The other's voices came barreling into his comm and he dialed down the volume, trying to focus, but the ghost of that black, oily chuckle slipped away before he was certain he'd heard it in the first place.

He was brought back to reality when he felt Rukia withdraw her hand, perhaps a bit too quickly, and cross her arms while keeping an eye on his mask. He turned to see his own reflection in the side panel of the hauler, bright red blood splashed across half his helmet, which had been the thing obscuring his vision. After all the time he'd spent on his father's medical ship the sight of blood wasn't anything new and he shrugged it off as he wiped it away. He turned back to Rukia, seeing her lips moving behind her faceplate, and quickly dialed the volume back up, realizing he was being left out of the conversation.

"-we'll have to leave the hauler, set out to find another route," Rukia was saying, averting her face and looking back to the group.

"Uh, bad idea," Ichigo broke in, "The hauler is our best bet for getting across the station fast."

"That was before we knew the station had been… compromised. The hauler is too big and loud, who knows how many of those things are out there? Driving this thing is like broadcasting 'Here we are, come get us!'" she pointed out, complete with exaggerated hand motions.

"She has a point, Kurosaki," Uryu mentioned, recognizing a fight brewing when he saw one.

"You stay out of this," Ichigo dismissed, never taking his eyes off Rukia as he bent down to her level. "Unless you really want to walk your ass across this station like _some_ people are suggesting."

"I'm _suggesting_ that we make more of an attempt to remain inconspicuous while we get across the station," Rukia ground out, eyes narrowing behind her faceplate.

"We won't get across the station without the hauler, it's faster and safer," Ichigo said, hoping to point out the obvious.

"Oh! The hauler can get us there, sure," Rukia answered, lacing her tone with saccharine flippancy, "Just ignore the army of shambling, ravenous horrors right behind us. It's fine! Just so long as you're right, it's okay if we're dead."

"So walking is a better plan?" he balked back, "Look around, this isn't exactly the Green Zone's promenade. We'll be fine if we just. Stay. In. The. Hauler." He had found the hauler, he was the one who'd been driving it, who was she to say this wasn't good enough? She could be so frustrating sometimes.

"Pull your head out of your arrogant ass, Ichigo," Rukia snapped back, her whole body bristling with agitation by now. "Who the hell said anything about _walking?_ " Her heart was beating in her ears and her breath was making the defogger in her helmet work overtime. If he'd just _listen_ for once.

His mouth open, a sharp retort already armed and ready down the line of the finger he pointed at her, Ichigo caught himself. "Wait, what?" limped out instead.

"Just follow me and try to keep up," she ordered, inwardly flushed with verbal victory as she spun on the heel of her boot and marched determinably away. "And clean off your helmet," she threw over her shoulder.

Hands in fists at his sides, Ichigo chewed his lips behind his mask as she stomped away, only peripherally noting that Uryu and Renji had moved up alongside him.

"She has an odd way of flirting with you," Uryu commented.

"Tell me about it," Ichigo and Renji replied in unison, then paused to turn to look at one another. Behind the clear glassite of his faceplate, Renji's tattooed brows descended into a hard line, his jaw tight.

"I can still hear you, geniuses," Rukia said over the shared comm, standing across the way next to the two detectives.

Whatever it was that Renji would've said to Ichigo withered behind his lips as he turned away from him, his look shifting from anger to dejection before he managed to cover it up. "Come on, let's get going then," he only said, stomping past Ichigo and Uryu.

Letting him shove past, Ichigo watched Renji leave without a word, only glancing to Uryu as the young vigilante hoisted that bulky bag he'd been carrying back onto his shoulder. Uryu gave Ichigo a 'can't-blame-the-ex-for-being-mad-at-the-new-guy' kind of shrug, and a small part of him agreed. A very small part.

"You also might want to do something about, uh…" Uryu stopped to say, then faltered, pausing only to indicate Ichigo's helmet with a look of extreme distaste on his face, before he hurried to join the others.

Wondering what all the fuss was about, Ichigo reached up and yanked the mirror on the side of the hauler down to face him. "Oh," was all he said, seeing that Toshiro's gunshot had splattered the human-hollow's blood across the side of his helmet. He wiped the corrupted ichor away with a noise of disgust and turned to follow the others. He'd have to clean it up later, right now he'd just have to live with it still streaked with crimson.

The others were arrayed loosely at the crest of the transit lane's rise, all staring down the access ramp they'd driven up just prior, and remained that way as he stepped up in line with them. Taking a breath to clear his mind, he asked, "So what's the new plan Ruki-uh…" A shadow in the smoky, yellowish air down at the bottom of the slope caught his attention and the words died on his lips. The shadow moved through the haze with too much purpose… lurching along the transit lane with a torturously slow, methodical pace. He flicked his eyes to another, and then another behind it, and another to the right, and a half dozen on the left side. All of them were shuffling along through the hazy air, gradually coming closer.

"I'm counting eighteen, maybe twenty," Rukia said evenly, falling back on her training in threat assessment, the soldier within rising up to the challenge even as her chest felt frozen in ice.

"What do we do?" Toshiro asked, checking the magazine on his weapon. It only held ten more rounds.

No sooner had he uttered the words than the figures shuffling uncertainly in their direction lifted their heads, squinting through the haze and sniffing the air. With dead faces frozen into gaunt and expressionless masks, they all turned towards them with an unsettling degree of certainty. Low moans rumbled up from the hazy smoke and they began stumbling and lurching faster, mouths opening with slavering hunger and dead, lifeless eyes fixed into a permanent stare. Like a wave that spread among them, the few who'd picked up their scent triggered more, and they, others, until there was a small army of them, moaning and stumbling through the smoky air, mindless with bloodlust and starvation. They'd scented a meal.

Spellbound by the sheer unreality of what was unfolding not more than a hundred meters from her, she was shaken from it when a firm hand took hold of the crook of her arm. Sucking in a breath, she spun to look right into the masked face of Ichigo's helmet, bloody streaks across the left half, and he held her gaze. The moment lasted an infinity, staring into the depthless, black glassite pools in his eyeports. A shift of his head and the yellow light glaring through the haze and smoke shined from his eyes. He tossed his head and she followed his look, right at the crumbling, collapsed lane behind them. It still hung there, precariously dangling from a few unbroken strands of the reinforcement lattice, all the way down to the surface level. The soldier within her instantly understood and issued the order, commanding her to move. 'Retreat.'

Rukia turned to Toshiro, Rangiku standing behind him, both looking pale but determined. On her other side Renji, Uryu and Ichigo faced the shadowy figures that were creeping slowly through the diffused light and up the transit lane ramp. They didn't have a choice, they couldn't take on that many hostile targets without attracting even more attention, they couldn't take the hauler any further down the damaged lane, and there wasn't room or time to try to turn it around. Rukia hardened her gaze, brought up a diagram of the station sector in the corner of her vision, nodded back at the long descent to the surface level down the fallen section of transit lane and said, "We run."

The six of them drew back, turning to sprint for the ledge with increasing levels of desperation. The long arch of elevated lane had collapsed into a craggy, broken incline of durocrete held tenuously together only by the rebar threaded through it. They skidded to a stop at the edge and were staring down the precipitous drop, the whole of it looking like it could fall further apart at any moment, when another gunshot went off.

Ichigo turned to see Toshiro drop to one knee, aiming his weapon back the way they'd come, as he squeezed off another round, then another. One shadows pursuing them through the smoke crumpled to the ground, the yellow light tingeing red at its shoulder. Aghast, he watched the smoke begin to thin revealing the others, their bodies ruined and scarred almost beyond recognition, as they fell upon the wounded one with an animal savagery. He could hear their howls of hunger turn to screams even through his helmet, and realized the young detective had bought them a few seconds of time.

"Go, go!" Toshiro yelled through the comm, holstering the weapon and waving them forward. Caught somewhere between caution and adrenalin, they scrambled over the crumbling lip and slid down to the first craggy ledge they could, their gloved fingers and heavy boots clawing and scraping at the cracked durocrete. Strung up like an enormous cargo net, the broken lane shifted and rumbled ominously under their weight, and each of them paused in sudden uncertainty, silently hoping it would remain anchored to the pylon. An inhuman screech from above prompted them to action, and they moved down to the next crumbling block ledge as hastily as they could.

Their ears were full of the rough, staticky sound of their softsuit's padding, boot soles and gloved fingers finding purchase on what had once been the transit lane. No one spoke. Each was too concerned with navigating the fallen lane surface, descending it like a huge misshapen ladder with rungs that were meters apart, jagged, crooked, and crumbling beneath them while all around, the specter of the cityscape pockmarked with fingers of smoke and points of orange fire loomed up through the dirty, yellow haze.

Rukia's hands were beginning to ache inside her gloves, her fingers cramping from gripping the sawtooth edges of broken durocrete. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she took a deep, calming breath, looking down for the next crack she could get to. A warbling scream from overhead, sounding tinny over the microphone array, made her look up, scanning for movement at the crest of the lane. Seeing nothing, realizing that their pursuers had stopped to attack the ones Detective Hitsugaya had injured, Rukia felt her stomach clench uncomfortably. Another calming breath and the soldier in her pushed its way to the fore, letting her sublimate pain, mitigate terror, and ignore the depravity of the human-hollows above. Looking down, she focused on the next fissure in the fallen transit lane two meters below her, adjusted her feet, and let go. Again, her helmet was filled with the scraping of material against the durocrete until she landed hard on the lip of the crack, her hands scrambling as her legs tried to cushion the blow, the broken lane groaning and creaking precariously. One bad landing could send her off the transit lane and out into the air for a long, lethal trip down to the surface level below.

The incline began to plane out as they neared the surface level and all of them were beginning to breathe easier. Their suits were scuffed and streaked with dust by the time they skidded to a stop off the last, large slab of broken lane and all of them were weary with exertion, rubbing stiches in their sides or aches in their shoulders. A shuddering vibration through their feet and the brief, heavy slap of pressure on their suits had them instantly on alert, all of them seeing the flash of yellow-red light and column of smoke rising from a nearby tower.

With glances to one another, they retreated quickly to the shadows off the side of a nearby commerce center, looted and wrecked but thankfully not on fire. The air was denser down at surface level and so was the smoke and dust, hanging lazily in the air and cutting visibility to less than fifty meters. Above them, the higher floors of nearby towers as well as the pylons that held the major transit lane system aloft were lost in the haze, the Coriolis of the station sending the smoke into curling, eddying swirls. Around them, half-obscured by the dirty air, fallen sections of the L-1 had hit several buildings, spearing through their once-gleaming faces or crushing entire floors and shattering countless windows. Water was gushing from a hundred different places, pouring from broken buildings and running down their fractured planes. All around, the crumbled, dusty debris of chaotic demolition lay unnaturally still across the narrow surface lanes that wound around the bases of the massive towers.

"It looks like a warzone," Rukia muttered to herself, her eyes flicking from a finger of smoke rising from a nearby building down to a crashed hovercar, then over to a shattered storefront. The patio of the restaurant next door, bizarrely, still had tables that had not overturned. There was still food on some of them.

"This is so surreal," Rangiku agreed, bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. "This is supposed to be the most populated station in the system," she waved out at the empty surface level, refuse blowing in the currents of air. Somewhere a blast-seal was leaking and the air was bleeding into space. "Where is everyone?"

"Sanctuary pods, probably," Toshiro replied. Part of the safety system on most any large station where blastdoor-secured sections weren't feasible, the pods could be found across the station at regular intervals, designed to keep the station's personnel and citizens safe in the event of an emergency.

His hand braced against the smooth metal of the tower next to him, Ichigo peered out into the hazy city air as a creeping sensation of wrongness slithered up his spine. He could detect no movement on the street in either direction, or any of the elevated walks between buildings, and yet he couldn't help but feel he was being watched, hunted. "We're too exposed out here," he commented, his voice tense even to himself. "What's the plan?"

"Working on it," Rukia commented, her gaze swiveling from place to place up and down the street. Her lips quirked into a frown, realizing this whole area was an upscale residence cluster, and opened up the map she'd been running instead. Panning and zooming it around, she let out a small growl of frustration.

"Problem?" Uryu asked, hitching the bulky bag he was still carrying around onto his shoulder.

"There's no cargo transfer point around here," Rukia answered, her own shoulders slumping slightly as she found the nearest one nearly eight blocks away.

"Cargo transfer point?" Detective Hitsugaya asked blankly, his hands cupping his pistol as he smoothly checked the street for any sign of movement.

Rukia nodded as she turned up to face Toshiro, her glance catching the others. "I knew we weren't going to be able to use the surface lanes, even on foot. It would take too long and we'd be too open to those… things," she explained, sending a wary look back up the broken incline. She knew she was the only one among them who had lived on Karakura Station long enough, and without her own personal transportation, to become familiar with the various ways of moving people and things from place to place available, not all of them official. "The streets are nearly impassable anyway, and the L-one and L-two are worse, so the only option we have left to get to the naval sector," she paused, hoping they'd be willing to hear her out, "Is to use the cargo transfer rails in the station's sub-level."

A long, stunned pause greeted that suggestion.

"What?" Toshiro balked, "Are you kidding?"

"I dunno much about this station, but are you sure we want to go down there?" Rangiku asked, skepticism written across her face.

"Rukia," Renji said, his temper beginning to fray, "Look around, you think the damage is just on the surface? There's no way that rail system down there is still running."

"Besides," Uryu spoke up. His glasses had fallen a bit down the bridge of his nose and he peered over their rims at her, his helmet preventing their adjustment. "We'd lose the tactical advantage of the open sightlines out here." His fingers flexed around the grip of an unusual, but still perfectly dangerous looking, weapon. Rukia did not miss the almost unconscious reach he made for something else at his belt, but his hand returned to the butt of the grip after a moment.

"I know it's a risk, but it's also our best option." Rukia shifted her look to take in their faces one by one, tired and unsure, until she caught Ichigo standing at the back. His masked face and posture gave away nothing of his thoughts, but she could tell he was listening intently, weighing their limited options. "What do you think?" she asked him.

"You sure it'll work?" Ichigo asked back. The ramifications of getting trapped in the sub-level went unspoken.

She felt a small wave of relief go through her, Ichigo was willing to listen to her. "Yeah," Rukia said confidently before going on to quickly explain that unlike the L-1 and L-2 transit lane systems, which were primarily used for civilian traffic, the sub-level was far more utilitarian and industrialized. Ore from the Rukongai Belt was the lifeblood of the station, and the sub-level rail network was how it moved in from collectors to refiners to fabricators and then back out to transports. All of this depended on a cargo exchange system that was modular, extensible, and most importantly: fault-tolerant. The stakes were high but based on what she'd seen, the damage done to the station wouldn't have completely incapacitated the cargo exchange system.

"It's our best shot, and we don't have a lot of options in the first place," Ichigo agreed. "How do we get there?"

Rukia immediately went back to flicking through her map. "There must be another way to get…" she muttered to herself, glancing around at the surface lanes as she shifted and zoomed the map around in her vision.

"Okay listen, this whole sub-level idea? Not gonna work," Renji forwarded. He cleared his throat when Rukia shot him a critical look. "It's just, the cargo transfer system isn't just like a subway or something, it's all heavily secured. The cars are all sealed behind biomimetic locks and, like, three different levels of tokenized authentication."

"And you know that, how exactly?" Toshiro queried, mild suspicion creeping into his tone.

Renji smiled, unrepentant. "It's like Rukia said, all the value on this station goes through that transfer system, so we did our homework on it a while back." The smile dropped from his face as he went on, "We never could get the job together though, and we had the time to plan it and the crew to do it. You think we'll be able to get into a cargo car with just us?" Renji motioned at their rather shabby, tired, and ill-prepared group. "Without the keys it's just not happenin'. Just too bad we can't just take one of these hovercars, huh?"

Rukia froze, her hands outstretched but unmoving, the map's control points still queued to the position of her fingers as her quest to find a closer cargo-sector access point was forgotten. "What'd you just say?"

"I said without the keys-"

"Forget the keys, we don't need them. I meant the other part…" she trailed off. Peering through the translucent display hovering in her vision, her gaze settled on one of the few hovercars parked on the street, then shifted to another that had collided with the entranceway to a massive apartment complex, then up to another that had crashed into a skywalk, the back edge hanging off into open space twenty meters up. "About the hovercars," she said as realization struck.

"They all use the Transit Authority's nav-con, and it's offline," Ichigo said quietly, "Regular consumer models don't have a manual only mode."

"Yeah I know, but that's not it," she said, getting impatient, "Remember where you parked your hovercycle?" Rukia could feel the hope beginning to bubble up within her. They may get out of this yet.

"Uh, yeah. It's in a garage back on the docking ring where we boarded the _Red Princess_ ," he replied, his thumb over his shoulder.

"Exactly," she said smugly. She watched him turn to Uryu and the young vigilante glance back, each of them shrugging in total cluelessness. Men, she sighed to herself. They were in the middle of a high-class residence sector, surrounded by crashed luxury cars, and they all had to park somewhere. She aimed a victorious look at the innocuous platform down the street from them, the recognizable white lines and buffered landing rails of a parking space visible through the smoke, beneath the dust and debris. "The garages have service access hatches to the maintenance corridors, which lead to the sub-level cargo transfer rails." She'd found their entry point.

"A bit exposed," Toshiro said, nodding at their intended destination.

"We'll just have to move fast," Rukia determined, closing the map display in her vision with a flick. She slid the weapon Rangiku had given her from the holster at her back, checked the clip and breach, and flicked off the safety. Her eyes traveled up to meet Toshiro's as he drew his own gun. Behind him, Rangiku did the same. "Stay low, single file, watch the corners and shadows, call it out if you see anything move."

Toshiro paused a beat before nodding. "Get a lot of urban training in the G-13?"

Rukia thought back to her childhood, her sister in tow as they slipped through the ruins of the city on Junrinan Four, moving from shadow to shadow as Hisana tried desperately to stifle the illness that had just begun to grip her. She'd protected her sister from both the occupational forces and the other refugees. She'd been ruthless. "I have some experience in close quarters combat," was all she said.

Content with that, the Detective turned to the others. "You heard her, fall in people," Toshiro announced. Renji and Uryu both removed weapons from holsters and checked their safeties.

"That Ichigo guy is the only one without a weapon," Rangiku whispered over a private comm to Toshiro as everyone made ready to move.

Toshiro looked her way and gave an almost imperceptible shrug at her concerns. Still, he shot a covert glance at Ichigo, taking in the tall young man in the armored flightsuit and fully masked helmet, his relaxed but ready posture and casual ease in which he blended into the shadows around them. His head shifted and Toshiro suddenly found himself staring into the glossy eyeports of his helmet, glinting yellow in the dim light. Toshiro snapped his attention back to his weapon. "Does he look vulnerable to you, Rangiku?" Toshiro said back over their private comm.

"No, Captain," she replied, still speaking quietly. They both had the sudden, irrational suspicion that Ichigo could hear them. "Quite the opposite."

"If anybody sees anything, you call it out." Rukia edged out to the corner and prepared to move down the street to the garage. The haze in the air was making it hard to distinguish anything beyond fifty meters, fuzzing the edges on everything, muddying the colors into shades of yellow, brown and gold. Her hand gripped her weapon tighter, finding security in its weight and solidity as she faced the murky unknown. There could be hordes of those hollowfied creatures out there, lurking in the smoke beyond. She could be leading them all into a trap. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if she were lining up a target down her ironsights. She reminded herself that there wasn't time for doubts and there was no room for failure. "Ready? Let's go." Without waiting, she stole out of the alley and led them into the smoke. No turning back now.

Eyes and ears turned outwards, the six of them crept quickly down the street after leaving the shelter of their alley behind. Rukia, Toshiro and Matsumoto, all trained for mobilized combat, moved with the smooth precision of extensive practice; head low, shoulders down, legs and torso absorbing the energy of motion, their arms and weapons remaining balanced and level. The other three, the pilot, the pirate and the vigilante, managed to keep pace, awkwardly working to pair haste and stealth.

In the smoke and haze, the surface lanes stretched out into murky gloom and the towering buildings around them lost themselves in the dim, yellow smoke. The skywalks that connected buildings at higher levels seemed to emerge from nowhere, silently hovering above and throwing deeper shadows down at them. Crashed hovercars, the doors still hanging open, lay strewn across the lanes like children's toys. A rumble beneath their feet sent centerline illumination system flickering far above, a massive but brief strobe effect across the entire habitat. Amid the detritus of panic and desertion, Ichigo could feel an oppressive weight to the city around him, its mass closing in on him from all sides like this thick, dark smoke.

They were less than twenty meters from the garage docking plate when the Toshiro caught motion to the side of them, barely visible through the smoke. "Movement! Go now!" he yelled, grabbing Rangiku by the shoulder and turning her towards the target while emphatically directing the rest of them to keep moving. A moment's hesitation later, the others unsure, forced him to bark out more orders as he dropped into a firing stance. "Get that garage open!" Rukia didn't take time to nod, just turned and sprinted to the garage plate while he and Rangiku hung back, each staring down the sights of their weapons.

Ichigo turned away from the detectives and moved in pursuit of Rukia when a flicker of deeper darkness caught his attention from the other side. He was sure he'd seen something, like a shadow slipping through the smoke at the very fringes of his vision, but as he drew up short and focused, there was nothing there. He slowed his sprint to a jog, then a walk, his feet finally bringing him to a stop in the middle of an intersection. Brows furrowed in uncertainty, he turned back to Rukia to see her, crouched at the garage control console with a hardwire attached to her suit's glove contact and staring at him, her lips moving behind the glassite of her helmet. As if the volume of the comm channel had been turned from low to high, her words came rushing at him in sudden clarity, whatever distraction he'd been suffering from now forgotten.

"Ichigo! Come on!" she was saying.

He came over quickly, waving away her questioning look and saying simply, "Thought I saw something." He was relieved when she accepted that answer without much more than a huff, returning to flicking her fingers through interface panels only she could see.

"There, got-"

A gunshot rang out, the crack muffled by their suits, then another.

"-it." The garage plate at their feet gave a sudden lurch as the hydraulics unlocked. She shifted her gaze back to the detectives to see them retreating towards them, weapons still pointed into the smoke.

"Get that plate open," Rukia ordered, Uryu, Renji and Ichigo already in motion. Hooking their fingers beneath the edge that had tipped upwards, they heaved it higher and it moved with all the grace of precision machinery but none of the power. The rail assembly below creaked as they managed to get the plate into position and Rukia lithely slipped through the gap to land on the cramped maintenance deck right below it. Surrounded by the rail and suspension mechanisms of the garage system, she quickly found the heavy service lock and cranked it into position, locking the plate.

"Come on, come on!" she called out, ducking out of the way as Renji came over the lip on his stomach, squeezing through the narrow gap. He landed heavily on the deck grating, really only designed for a single crewman, and rolled out of the way as Uryu came through. The vigilante landed cat-like in a crouch, and made immediately for the simple rail ladder that led further down.

Rukia turned from Uryu and Renji and stared up through the gap. All she could see was the dirty, smoke filled air of the habitat beyond, and the sudden stillness gripped her chest like a vice. "Toshiro, Rangiku?" she called out into the comm. "Ichigo?" Her heartbeat was loud in her ears. "Answer me!"

Gunshots rang out in quick succession. Then nothing.

In the darkness of the service deck, hunched down below the propped garage plate and peering out through the narrow gap, she waited. Her eyes never wavered, never traveled to the heavy armatures and interlocking guide gearings. They never glanced at how the massive plate above her that she had clambered beneath was just one piece of an intricately designed system to secure a personal vehicle to the moorings, and then descend entirely beneath the surface level, sliding into a sub-level parking chamber as a new docking plate slid into its place. She tried not to make the mental connection of the vehicles like bullets clicking into a magazine, and her own position standing on the service deck akin to inside of a gun barrel.

Her heartbeat was louder now. She noticed her hand had gripped the manual locking bar, her fingers tight around it, ready to yank it free and send the docking plate rocking back down into normal position. When had she taken ahold of it? She uncurled her fingers from the lock lever and turned back to the gap, her eyes widening. A shape had blotted it out, filling the space with oddly misshapen darkness. Before she knew it, an arm was reaching out at her, fingers flexed and curled with desperation as it flailed for purchase.

"Rukia! Grab my hand!" Rangiku screamed.

She needed a fraction of a second to make sure she'd heard correctly. Shaking herself, she realized that in her shock she'd brought her weapon to bear, centering her neural link's targeting reticle onto Rangiku's head. Her finger eased gently off the trigger and she slid the weapon back into her holster as he reached with her other hand, grasping the busty detective by the wrist and anchoring her feet.

As soon as Rangiku's fingers clasped around Rukia's wrist, she was almost pulled off her feet when the detective hauled herself through the gap below the parking plate. Overbalanced, Rukia stumbled back in the darkness, trying not to fall from the small service deck as Rangiku came tumbling down onto her. The two of them crashed to the deck in a tangle of limbs, and just as Rukia was managing to extricate herself from beneath the detective, Toshiro slipped through after her. A breath of relief fogged up her faceplate for a moment and she looked up to the gap, expecting Ichigo to be right behind him. A shape dropped into view through the gap, his torso struggling to get beneath the docking plate, and Rukia found herself moving closer. And then it swung wildly at her, its head jerking unnaturally as it opened too-wide jaws slathered with bloody foam.

In moments more shapes surged into the gap, clawing their way over each other and digging their fingers into the metalwork and machinery that lined the walls and platform. Their mindless moans of hunger and savagery, suddenly deafening even through the material of her softsuit, grew to a fevered pitch as they spied her with widened, unblinking eyes. A thousand arms stretched out towards her, swiping and clawing from all around, edging closer and closer. Horrified, Rukia had to fall back. The soldier in her was screaming for her to grab her weapon but her fingers weren't responding properly, her eyes flicking to and fro. There wasn't enough room to escape on the small deck below the plate, all she could do was shrink down, nearly falling to her butt as she vainly tried to get herself further away. There was nowhere to go, but she kept a hold of Rangiku's wrist, keeping herself between the detectives and the gap. Her faceplate was getting harder to see through as her breathing sped up, the arms and ghastly faces and bony, spindly limbs clambering further through the gap, when the world went red and black.

A sound like the roar of some eldritch monster shook the entire deck and the moaning snarls of the horrors around her were snuffed out, the dim service lights on the deck winking out and replaced by the harshness of red. The monster roared again. The pulsing warning tone, the glare of the red lights, Rukia realized; Danger. She could hear nothing but the steady thrumming of the warning klaxon, the red lights around the small deck bathing the service area in a slow strobe. Belatedly she realized there were no more clawing and grasping forms around her, the deck was still, unmoving. A macabre fascination gripped her as she looked up to find the gap that had vanished, the docking plate rocking back to its normal position.

The warning klaxon continued to cut through her helmet, drowning out all other sound, and her eyes were drawn to movement across from her. Out of the darkness, rising up like it was made of the night, a figure arose. The strobe of the red lights threw him into relief, trimmed in tones of crimson and shadow, and the skeletal mask of his helmet turned to face her.

And all around him, blood poured from the edges of the docking plate, black as pitch in the harsh red light.

Running in shining, dark rivulets over the machinery and down through the deck grating, it served a startling backdrop as Ichigo moved towards her. His long frame bent down below the docking plate, he stalked across the decking until his armored suit and masked face commanded her entire view. The similarities bubbled up unbidden in her mind, the long frame, the predatory movements, metal and flesh and inhumanity wrapped into a killing machine. So like a monster, so like a Hollow. So when he moved his arm out at her, she nearly seized her weapon on instinct.

But he simply reached out, palm up, to help her to her feet.

Even surrounded by death and danger, trapped on a wounded station overrun with nightmarish experiments in recombinant DNA run amok, she smiled. Her hand found his and their fingers laced together.

* * *

Reaching the bottom of the sub-surface parking system did not take too long, the ladder that connected the service deck below the plate descended all the way to the main maintenance deck. They climbed slowly through the dark, their headlamps again the only sources of light as they scaled down the huge wall of honeycomb parking spaces. In the encroaching gloom as they moved away from the surface level, the only sounds they could hear through their suits were of gloves and boots scraping on the rungs, while the vast emptiness at their backs pressed at them, unnerved them, broken occasionally only by the large loading braces designed to shuttle the docking plates from the surface to the parking spaces, all sitting still on their rails.

Her feet landed firmly on the maintenance area at the bottom of the parking system and Rukia couldn't stop herself from looking back upwards. For all she could tell they had descended to the bottom of a massive box canyon, twin walls of parking spaces stretching up into the darkness beyond the shine of her headlamps. Steadying herself, her arms going to her knees as she bent over away from the cavernous view to catch her breath, Rukia caught a glimpse of the others, their eyes flicking upwards just as she had, then swinging back and forth, wondering if they were alone down here or not. Wondering if anything was going to come shambling in from the dark at them. Rising up, she turned to Ichigo only to find his attention directed towards the consoles and stations that ran along the edge of area. The eyeports of his mask revealed nothing.

There was evidence the area had been evacuated quickly, tools littered the ground, abandoned. Near the lone table, a chair had been knocked over. Atop it were the scattered remains of a game the workers had been playing, along with spilled beverages and food crumbs. "There's still power down here," he whispered, seeing the innocuous ready light on some of the terminals beyond.

"The sub-level has more reliable, independent backups for power and comms," Rukia mentioned. She turned to face him, a slight arch to her eyebrows. "Think you can get an uplink to Kon?"

Nodding, Ichigo walked over to activate the area's comm panel. "Worth a shot." Control screens blipped to life beneath his fingers as it powered up, and with a few commands he began negotiating a lease to an available antenna on the exterior of the station. The system prompted him for a security token and his finger hovered over the contact for a moment. He could upgrade the connection protocol to the higher network levels, provided they were still functioning, if he used his neural link security token, but there'd be a biomere mismatch once it was compared to what the Ministry of Information Control had on file. On one hand, it'd take hours for the process to alert the M-I-C that his link was non-standard. He could triple the bandwidth the comm array used. He'd be able to use the priority frequencies.

But on the other, the Ministry would eventually be able to trace it back to his link signature and figure out he'd genetically biomodified himself.

His finger moved, declining the token prompt, and he set up the channel to begin broadcasting the keyed packet sequence he and Kon had agreed on over the low bandwidth, public channel. As he waited for an answer from the ship, Rukia came over, leaned against the bulkhead and watched him work in the dark.

"Think he's still sulking?" she asked.

Rukia's eyes were a luminous violet behind the faceplate of her helmet when he glanced at her. They didn't accuse, they didn't judge, but they didn't endorse either, and Ichigo sighed in thought. "I know I'm asking a lot of him, and I know that if he's caught because of I'm making him do, he's got more to lose than I do." He shifted to look at her more directly, seeing her nod thoughtfully. "But I also know that deep down somewhere in his code, his alpha version was a combat A-I, and if anyone can manage it, he can."

"If you had to do it over, would you still order him to do it, again?" she asked finally.

"Yes."

And there it was, she realized. No hesitation, no indecision, just commitment. Ichigo and Kon were more alike than either wanted to admit, both were doing what they could in a situation neither of them had ever trained for, much less imagined. The difference was that Kon had been ordered to do it, and Ichigo had given the order. If this had been a traditional military operation, she could understand that Ichigo would be willing to see it through, willing to do what it'd take to succeed.

But it wasn't, this was just Ichigo being himself. He understood the consequences. He accepted the responsibility. He knew that all that remained was execution. She'd seen plenty of people with less than all three in her short career; plenty of well-intentioned, endearingly considerate, perfectly ethical failures; but she'd only seen a handful of people that had had them all. They'd been called callous, stubborn or even arrogant and while she could not disagree with those assessments, they still had always been the men and women she'd admired.

Because, for all the names they were called behind their backs, it was the one they were called to their faces that mattered: Captain.

She felt a shiver up her spine as she tried to see him in this new light. He was fiercely loyal, selfless and confident when faced with a problem, all qualities that could make a great captain. She frowned a bit as she continued, admitting that he was also independent, unorthodox and may have a slight problem with authority. The idea of command like an ill-fitting softsuit returned to her mind, and she quietly crossed her arms.

"I wouldn't bully him though." Ichigo saw her confused look, her eyes flicking back in his direction and he felt compelled to explain a bit more. "Kon, I wouldn't bully him into doing it."

Comprehension flit across her face and left it lit up, amusement edging at the corners of her eyes. Ichigo smiled in spite of himself, though he knew she couldn't see it, and turned back to the comm panel as he waited for a return signal. "It's just that he responds so well to it."

She laughed, small and quickly stifled, at the sheer absurdity of the entire situation. Ichigo having to bully an A.I. into uplinking to an M-I-C controlled network while they picked their way across a crumbling space station in danger of explosive decompression at any moment. Nevermind that the station had been boarded by cadaverous human-hollow hybrids and that it was simultaneously being consumed by actual, bio-mechanical Hollows from the outside.

The comm panel gave an unassuming chirp as it received an answering signal and Ichigo activated the channel, Rukia immediately moving around to see. A soft crackle of static in their aural implants buzzed and died away as the channel was successfully routed from the external antenna and through the comm system and into their neural links.

"Ichigo?" Kon asked, "You there? Cuz if you're not there then I'm just letting my ass hang out in the wind for no reason so you'd better be the-"

"I'm here, dammit," Ichigo answered, "And you don't have an ass to hang in the wind, so can it."

"Ain't no wind in space either, smart guy."

Ichigo clenched his hand into a fist, restraining himself from hitting something, before continuing in an overtly polite tone of voice, "Kon, have you managed to get any data off the station's network? You're supposed to be doing digital recon."

"And I am doing digital recon, what do you think I've been doing? Even if the station's network wasn't totally jacked, which it _is_ , four out of the five security levels are token controlled by the M-I-C, so I'm spoofing as many credentials as I can which is taking up time. Plus there are whole banks of routing hardware and signal processors that are all offline so just getting around the network is a goddamn pain."

"Less complaints, more data," Ichigo said.

"Ingrate. Fine, for your information I've loaded handlers into eight of the event loggers and about three dozen of the security cameras across the station. You want intel, I've got your intel and let me you…" Kon's voice dropped off.

"Kon?" Ichigo asked. He shared a glance with Rukia who was beginning to look slightly troubled.

"That station is in bigger trouble than I thought," Kon said finally, a curious sense of detachment in his voice. There was static building in the subsonics of the channel.

"The hollowfied humans." Rukia said it quietly, realizing she and Ichigo weren't the only ones to have encountered them before.

"Same as the comm relay station," Kon said and they could hear the metal in his voice. "Same ones who murdered Lirin."

Rukia heard his voice shift subtly, the minor inflections his speech synthesizer constructed vanishing under the cold sterility of his words. A chill went up her spine, as she shot a glance at Ichigo, standing at his full height and staring down at the comm panels. They'd spent so much time in microgravity or cramped ship cockpits that she'd almost forgotten exactly just how tall he was.

"Don't worry Kon," Ichigo said, his voice through the mask's comm system echoing with that same cold, metallic edge. "I'll take care of it."

Refocusing herself, Rukia blinked down at the comm panel hovering in front of the terminal and could well imagine Kon seething at the other end of the channel. "Kon," she spoke up, "We're down at the bottom of a garage bay, heading into the sub-level." She eyed Ichigo as she continued, knowing an opportunity when she saw one, "We'll be out of comm range until we get to a ring anchor pylon."

"Roger, wait. Why are you going through the sub-level?" Kon replied, returning his grumpy, snappish self.

"The surface level is controlled by hostiles," Rukia answered, "Besides, the transit lanes are all damaged and broken, we didn't get far before we had to abandon the freight hauler we found."

Kon made the digital approximation of a 'hmph' of semi-skepticism. "That station is enormous. You got a route?" Rukia buffered up the map and route she'd planned out, sending it down the comm channel to the A.I. still aboard the _Zangetsu._ "I'll compile what data I can, and see if I can keep the road clear for you."

"Thanks Kon," Rukia said genuinely. "Can you get eyes on any part of that, tell us if it's clear?"

"Yeah, sure. Gonna take me some time though, there are thicker layers of security on the networks connected to the cargo-exchange. You sure you want to go through the sub-level?"

"It's our only viable option," Rukia answered.

"Oh yeah," Kon agreed. "Dark, enclosed, probably powered-down, probably caved in labyrinth of cargo-transfer track tunnels is a great plan. Totally viable." Kon sent a basic still image of his holo-rendered self with the biggest, fakest grin and two thumbs up, to each of them. "I'm so glad to be a part of this."

Ichigo killed the connection with as much venom as he could muster into a flick of his finger.

* * *

Rukia slid her gloved finger away from the contact pad beside the door and used her other to dismiss the keyring notice in her vision, saying that Urahara's access to the sub-level was still valid. Behind her, the others clutched their weapons and waited silently as the heavy hatch door unlatched with a clank, popping open slightly on unpowered servos. Taking hold of the handle, she braced a foot against the bulkhead and tugged the hatch wider, the hinges whirring in protest.

Shouldering the hatch as open as she could get it, she shined her headlamps through the circle of black and the darkness beyond swallowed up the light. "Here it is, the sub-level cargo transfer system." The beams of other helmet lights swept past her, aimed out the hatch.

"How much further from here?" Toshiro asked, walking up beside her.

"It's less than a klick to the D-two ring anchor, from there we can get a car rolling and should be able to take it all the way to the navel sector."

"You sure?" Renji asked, leaning to peer through the hatch.

"The cars are self-powered and the track tunnels make up the load bearing superstructure of the habitat. The city hasn't lost all its atmosphere, so it must still be intact, mostly."

"I don't like that word, 'mostly' Rukia," Renji commented.

"Aww, cheer up Red," Rangiku said, sidling up to Renji, "I'll hold your hand if you're scared."

Renji gave a start and spun to face her. "That's not my hand!" Renji accused, which Rangiku musically laughed off.

Meanwhile, Ichigo and Uryu had approached the hatch, both looking out into the dark. Glimmers from something reflective shined back at them from below, so it wasn't a very far drop, but the tunnel stretched off into utter blackness in either direction. "Thoughts, Kurosaki?" Uryu asked.

"Yeah, a couple," Ichigo replied offhand, turning to the young man in his white softsuit. "For one, what are you carrying in the bag?" Ichigo aimed his mask at the bulky, but non-descript shoulder bag that Uryu hadn't let out of his possession since arriving on the station.

Uryu's eyes shifted behind his spectacles, going from the strap at his shoulder up to Ichigo's masked face. He cleared his voice and resettled the strap before saying, "Special order."

Ichigo waited for him to continue, but when it was clear that Uryu wasn't about to he huffed and was about to turn away when he noticed something. Uryu was wearing an old style softsuit that still used a heavy shoulder cape of radiation shielding that hung to his waist. The act of resettling the bag on his shoulder had shifted part of it, revealing the man's belt. "Is that-" Ichigo asked, beginning to motion with his hand.

"It's none of your concern," Uryu interrupted, twitching the cape back into place.

"If that's what I think it is, it sure the hell is my concern," Ichigo snapped, shifting the comm to a private channel.

"It has a very specific application," Uryu said, and behind his faceplate there was a very slight tightening of his jaw, his teeth pressing together just a bit more.

"I know exactly what kind of application that thing has," Ichigo shot back. He eased back, studying the man. "Is that why you're here?" Ichigo asked finally.

Uryu's brows angled down as his expression went from quiet menace to indignation. "If that's what you think then you really must be as dense as your partner implies. I am here for the same reason we're all here, this system has a problem and events have conspired to put us in a position where we are uniquely suited to solve it." Uryu leaned closer to Ichigo, lacing his voice with dark emphasis. "The device I carry on my belt has an unrelated, very specific purpose."

Ichigo weighed his words before he spoke again. "If we get through this, I can do what I can to help you, in return."

Uryu brushed passed Ichigo, heading for the hatch that Rukia was preparing to jump through. "You don't owe me anything, Kurosaki. It's none of your concern," he repeated.

Detecting the two men were speaking over their own channel, Rukia warred over demanding what the issue was and giving Ichigo his space. Between Renji and Toshiro, their group didn't need any more friction, so she settled on shooting Ichigo a quizzical look from her perch on the lip of the hatch. If it was something she needed to know, he'd tell her. His only reply was a slight motion of dismissal with his hand, but the movement carried the weight of something more. She nodded slightly to him, and he nodded back in thanks, at which point she pivoted on her toes, leaned out above the cargo rails and leapt down into the dark, leaving the other five in her wake.

Uryu was standing at the hatch cinching the strap of the bag he was carrying when Ichigo stepped around him. Bending through the portal he could see Rukia's headlamps down below, twin points of light in a sea of black. They shined up at him, and he tucked himself into the hatchway to follow her down. The drop was maybe three meters, and though he didn't have helmet lamps on his mask, the sensors in his eyeports and detailed map of the station were giving him a glowing, wireframe display of his surroundings written directly to his ocular implants. When he jumped from the hatch he was perfectly prepared for landing on the floor of the cargo rail-line. He was not, however, prepared for landing in knee-deep water.

"What the…"

Rukia laughed at him over the comm channel as he sloshed his way towards her. There was another splash behind him, water spraying across the back of his suit and waves lapping against his legs followed immediately by a groan of such utter distaste that he knew it must have been coming from Uryu. He turned to look over his shoulder to see the young man's head tipped downwards, his headlamps illuminating the brackish, filthy water filling the tunnel and covering his softsuit. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he stomped his way closer, his lips pursed thin and bloodless.

"Broken water mains and sewer lines, from the main habitat," Rukia said, pointing above her. "I supposed we should be lucky it all collected here, at least we know the area hasn't suffered a breach."

"'Lucky' is not a word I'd use," Uryu muttered.

The other three quickly followed suit and, after consulting her map, set off down the tunnel. The beams from their headlamps reflected off the rippling surface of the water in in front of them, paving the tunnel with glittering flashes of light.

"Which way to the pylon anchor?" Detective Hitsugaya asked, casting a wary glance around the narrow durocrete walls all covered in dripping water.

Rukia consulted the map hovering at the periphery of her vision, switching it to isometric and rotating it around to focus on their location with a few neural commands. "That way," she said, pointing.

She saw him nod once in agreement, falling into formation they began to slosh their way through the grime and muck. Inwardly, she felt a professional admiration of the young detective's ability to maintain his focus and calm under what must have been unusual circumstances for him. Being a patrol force detective from the Outer Orbits, she thought it unlikely that he'd spent much time wading through sewer water, much less walk about on stations this size, but he took to it without a word of complaint. Unlike two other people she could name, she thought to herself, glancing back at Renji and Uryu.

Rukia knew Renji had never been to a station this size, and guessed Uryu hadn't either from the way they were acting. There were subtleties in the way the ground feels; differences between the pull of natural gravity, the A-Grav on a ship, and the centripetal force of the spinning station, that all affected the body in different ways. She surmised Uryu spent most of his time flying his ship in the Outer Orbits, or fixing it while docked at one of the numerous abandoned space stations under A-Grav, and was slowly becoming accustomed to the way the station felt under his feet. Renji, however, was apparently spending most of his time planetside now, and was looking a little green behind the faceplate of his helmet.

It hadn't stopped him, apparently, from nudging Uryu on the shoulder and pointing to a trickle of water dribbling from overhead. The two of them stared for a moment at the sight of the water 'falling' at an angle with respect to the rotation of the habitat.

She turned away from them, adjusting her softsuit slightly. It had been a while since she'd really marveled at anything, as used to life in space as she was to wearing softsuit. It was just another acclimation required to function, like the smell of recycled air or the taste of synthesized food, that people had developed over the years that space had been explored and colonized. The experience of wearing a sealed suit with a built-in life support system and associated features was just something everyone had done and become used to, assuming they managed to leave planetside. As such, it was not unusual for her to experience the world around her through the sensors of her suit, to have atmospheric readings appear in her neural link, displayed in panels floating in her vision or to be listening to her surroundings through her suit's microphone array. It should have felt unremarkable to be wearing her softsuit because, for all intents and purposes, it was her second skin. So why, she asked herself, that with every glance around the semi-collapsed, sub-level transit system through the faceplate of her helmet, she felt more and more despondent.

This place had been her home, and now it required her to wear her suit. Now it was a ruined wreckage of plastisteel, glassite and durocrete. Now it was dark, cold, lifeless and poisoned.

The ground beneath them shuddered, the vibrations churning the water around them and rumbling up through their legs as they froze, instinctively throwing their hands out to brace themselves. Fine grit and powder joined the dripping water raining down from the darkened structure work above them, filtering through the beams of their headlamps. The rumbling vibrations ceased unexpectedly and the group shot glances at one another, every one of them thinking the same thing; somewhere, another section of the station was undergoing decompression.

Together, they continued on down the darkened transit lane tunnel, the sound of their legs sloshing through the muck the only sound, each absorbed by their own thoughts. While there was mercifully little major damage to the sub-level in this section, cracks along the durocrete or plastisteel deforming under stress being the worst they'd seen, it was inescapable that the station had been compromised and that tens of thousands of metric tons of mass hung above their heads while the skin of the station wasn't far below their feet.

"Hey Rukia," Renji spoke up, his voice crackling over their comm channel.

Rukia brushed her hand across her faceplate, wiping off the grime that was starting to accumulate. She was not looking forward to cleaning out the joints of her suit. "Yeah?"

"I'm uh… I'm concerned about all this water. How do you know the other lanes are going to be in operation?"

"This is an ancillary circuit lane for small shipments, only big enough for cargo to move in one direction. The main arteries near the impelators are on different sets of tracks, shouldn't be too hard to get from there to the naval sector."

"How do you know all this stuff?" Renji asked, and Ichigo could hear the tone beneath it, the one that said 'I-thought-I-knew-everything-about-you' was slipping further and further into 'I-don't-even-recognize-you-anymore'.

"Urahara," she said, tonelessly. "G-13 cargo and supplies for the hangar had to come in somehow. Ordinance, ammunition, ablative armor. Takes work to make those things untraceable."

"So arms smuggling is government policy then?" Toshiro pointedly interjected.

Rukia slowed at the insinuation in his voice. "The mission the G-13 is tasked with does not fall under a typical military deployment and supply structure. We do what we have to, so that the rest of the system doesn't. If that means resorting to gray market transactions and dead-end trace shipments, so be it."

"You mean 'did'," Toshiro corrected as he brushed past her. "The G-13 _did_ what it had to do but now your covert war is over, and, as they are a hostile force these Hollows are a Navy problem now. Maybe if you'd involved the patrol forces in the first place, we wouldn't have this mess."

Rukia could feel her teeth grinding together. Involving the patrol forces, or any other branch of the military or government, would have undermined their entire political structure. She knew Toshiro was just falling back on his training to deal with this situation but that was precisely why the G-13's or the Hollows' existence could never be made public. Part of her job had been protecting the system from itself because they simply weren't ready. Armed with this information and readying a scathing retort, she felt a sudden presence at her side before a hand lay lightly on her shoulder.

Ichigo turned his masked face down to her, a hiss of vapor trailing from the ventilators at the side of his mouth. Toshiro's problem wasn't worth her time and he couldn't let her get distracted by being drawn into an argument that was pointless to begin with, and he tried to tell her all of that without using their private comm, just a touch at her shoulder. Sometimes, the simplest ways to communicate were the best.

She brought a hand up to his, her gloved fingertips grazing his own, and blew out a calming breath. Ichigo's stubbornness she could handle, their hotheaded differences of opinion she welcomed, and his confidence in improvisation she respected, but it was his unswerving focus on what was important that she felt connected to. Assigning blame was not important, and she shouldn't let someone else's slavish dedication to rules that didn't apply affect her.

Besides, she'd never held the rules in any particularly high regard anyway.

She decided to let the detective's comment slide and went to take another step when Ichigo's hand suddenly tightened on her shoulder. His head had snapped up, aimed up and to the side, his body language tense and coiled. She froze, and the others behind them stopped up short, noting his abrupt shift in posture.

Ichigo's visual systems were working on processing the data from his suit's sensors, flicking through enhancement routines and spectrum analyzers, trying to single out the flicker he'd seen up in the deeper shadows. He was sure of it, despite the blinking no-signal indicator hovering in his vision. He waved it away and spoke out into the comm, his voice low and rushed, "Everyone stop."

"What is it?" Renji asked, cocking his head at him.

Ichigo shushed him with an impatient wave of his arm and closed down his visual processors with a snap, instead flicking up the control system of the microphone array and pushing the gain up as high as it would go. The tiny squeaks of their softsuits and the small laps of water against their legs grated like boulders rolling across sheet metal or roared like ocean waves, but he still managed to make it out. He could manage to isolate the soft padding of unsuited skin against bare metal, near indistinguishable from the heaving and groaning of the wounded station. "I can hear something moving."

There was a pause as the group digested that information, unconsciously moving closer and directing their headlamps outward into the darkened tunnel.

"What do you think?" Uryu quietly asked, directed mostly at Rukia but willing to accept anyone's input.

"Might be survivors," Rukia whispered back. She left the alternative unspoken.

Toshiro flicked his fingers through the air, scrolling through a menu screen in a neural display before he began speaking. "Rangiku, can you patch into the station's network? Use your P-F override to get as high a tier connection as you can. Kuchiki, how detailed is that map you have of the stations? Does it have the service and access hatches? If we can get a lock on their position, we'll need to plot a course there."

"Hey whoa, wait a sec," Renji interjected, "This isn't a rescue mission, we don't have any supplies. We couldn't help anyone even if we wanted to."

"Our duty is to the civilians of the station and this system," Toshiro said by way of explanation.

"Nah, nah," Renji argued. "Our _duty_ was to get to the naval sector, uncouple a ship, and get it the hell away from this station. The Hollows are here for it, and so is whatever the hell is coming in from the Rim. You want to protect people, you stick to the plan."

"It doesn't really matter, I can't get online anyway," Rangiku said, wiping her hands through the air to brush away whatever screens she'd called up. "We can't ask them if they need help in the first place."

"Have you seen the shit going down on this station?" Renji went on, "I'm not even sure they'd want our help."

"If you survived a major attack on the station," Ichigo said, stepping away, "Would you turn down two patrol force detectives, a government operative, an Outer Orbits combat pilot, and a pirate ship captain?"

"I suppose not," Renji mumbled. "Wait, that's the rest of us, what do you do?"

"Whatever I tell him to do," Rukia confidently supplied. She turned to give him a smirk, but her mouth fell open instead, watching in speechless horror as Ichigo yanked a length of heavy conduit down, slid the insulation off and shouldered, ready to swing it at the wall.

"Yeah well, most of the time," he said, and swung the heavy pipe as hard as he could, striking the durocrete wall. The tunnel reverberate like a gong, the water shimmering in tiny ripples, as the sound echoed through the structure and bulkheads.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Kurosaki?" Toshiro practically yelled.

"If they're survivors-" he said, and swung again, harder this time. "They'll ring back," and he swung a third time, "If not, then… they won't."

The six of them waited, letting the silence draw out. When no answer came, Ichigo turned back to the empty, dark corridor, dropping the pipe to sink beneath the black water. "Let's keep going." He had the impression that Rukia caught the momentary defeat in the set of his shoulders before he managed to cover it. He very pointedly did not say anything, and she very pointedly responded in kind.

* * *

From the shadows above them, the lenses of its eyes spun and whirred, focusing on the tall one as the group walked slowly away. Curling back up into the darkness of the pipes and conduits, it sat back and checked again for new orders or information, or anything. The remote buffers remained unreachable, there was no answering signal. It had been alone so long without contact that it had exhausted every facet of the last instructions it had received. It registered an audio signal and swiftly brought up acoustic processors, ready to analyze and encode even as its targeting system engaged. It found itself staring firmly at its own appendage, tapping against the insulation of a large pipe.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It cocked its head, studying itself, and then spun to face the direction the humans had gone.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

* * *

They reached a section where a support beam had buckled and a massive block of durocrete had cracked and fallen, jutting up from the water nearly to the roof. Picking their way around the boulders and debris, little islands in the murky water, they climbed their way up the incline and stared at the stretch beyond. The collapse went on for another fifty meters, turning their smooth jaunt down the tunnel into an obstacle course of broken durocrete and metal structure work. Their helmetlamps cast deep, shifting shadows over everything, making it impossible to tell crevice from expanse. Water and dust were raining from overhead in dozens of places, collecting into pools of crusty, thick mud wherever they could.

"Lemme guess, we're gonna have to go through there?" Renji asked.

"Yeah, another hundred meters beyond and we should be at the cargo rail exchange," Rukia answered, clapping him on the shoulder, "Easy right?" She left her other thoughts silent, figuring they all must have been thinking it; If there was a spot for ambush, this was it. They clustered together in each other's light, peering warily into the darkness.

All but one.

Feeling a bit more comfortable in the darkness, Ichigo hung back. The neural contact plate resting against his neck was cool on his skin, connecting the sensors in the eyeports of his mask directly to his link and ocular implants. Between the data they could collect and his schematic of the station's interior, he could move through the utter blackness without having to rely on something as simple as visible light. Formulas and calculations deriving the proximities and characteristics of his surroundings floated through his vision, spinning through the bio-processors of his link, and he took a moment to study them in finer detail. He found them oddly arranged, and idly began reformatting them in unusual but familiar ways. Feeling like he was on to something he couldn't properly describe, Ichigo continued to arrange them, letting the glowing equations fill his vision as they wove together like a tapestry. Everything was interrelated, distilled into quantifiable data and waiting for him to reach for, all written in their strange arrangements and with their alien variables.

He closed his eyes and could feel the whole of it, every derivation and result, expanding to fill his mind with their numerical descriptions. It was almost laughable, this sensation compared to clumsy and inadequate his five human senses were. For a moment, he wondered what the use of knowing color or texture, smell or taste was. Such physical properties were pointless next to the properties that physics could give him. The very fabric of space and time was woven before him, stitched together in the cold and heartless elegance by the mathematical language of the universe.

He shuddered, nauseas.

A sweat broke out across his brow and Ichigo clenched his hands, squeezing his shut eyes tighter. He'd seen these before, feeling suddenly sick as the memory of flying the _Sode no Shirayuki_ through the wind turbine tunnels on Inzuri swam to the surface of his mind, demanding his attention. The sensation of those few seconds in which he had lost himself to this bizarre sense of mathematical affinity could not be allowed, he commanded himself. The disdain he felt for the real world around, in favor of the sterility of what could be mathematically derived was not his own, was not something that belonged to him. It belonged to the _other_. Mentally backpedaling, pushing away the formulae and equations from his mind even as they tugged like threads through his brain, he was desperate to get away. He turned to see the others gathered in a meager pool of head-lamp light.

All but one.

Rukia had slipped away to join him in the darkness. Standing beside him with her helmetlamps dark, she looked out into the gloom without speaking and he felt a rush of gratitude for her simple, silent presence. He let the moment stretch as long as he could before he faced her fully, switching his eyeports to simple transparency so he could look her in the eyes.

"You ready?" she asked him, her lips moving behind the faceplate of her helmet but her voice soft in his ear, over their private comm.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice a little hoarse. "Lead on." There was still a part of him that embraced the darkness, a part that felt at home in the endless night, but when she moved to hold her gloved hand out to him, he took it.

And she led him back into the light.

* * *

Once Kon had realized it, he had proceeded to park the _Zangetsu_ in the most inconspicuous place he could think of: High above the station out in the middle of low-traffic space, about a quarter-light-second away. He'd powered off everything he could to reduce the ship's energy signature, chilling the entire interior before venting the atmosphere and disabling life-support, making the whole thing as cold as he could. The only thing he left running was the tightbeam array, powered from his own suit's onboard power plant. He'd focused the tightbeam down to be as thin as a needle and was confident that if anyone bothered to sweep a sensor at him, all they'd see is a slightly warmer spot in the background radiation.

"Ichigo's gonna freak when I tell him," Kon muttered to himself, "Cut me off mid-sentence. I have half a mind to not bother telling him at all." He cycled through his vid-cap buffers again, the security cameras he'd taken control of sending datastreams to his handlers. He didn't bother monitoring them all directly as he didn't want to be bored stupid, so he'd set up simple motion detection piped directly to pattern recognition, and set them all to alert him if it went off. He sent power to the nose cone camera on the ship and brought up its video buffer instead, seeing the station sitting there over the top of the blackness of space, specs of debris and the occasional flare of burning oxygen or Hollow ship thruster surrounding it like a halo.

"You guys are in bigger trouble than you know," Kon sighed.

One of his handlers began speaking up and Kon directed his attention at it, dredging it up from the recesses of storage and up into primary memory. For an entire nanosecond he didn't know what the hell the handler was outputting, it just wasn't making sense. They were supposed to watch for movement and determine who was moving, Hollow-humans or the regular kind, so he could take action if it was possible. This handler was just returning garbage data, even though his status calls kept returning the value of 'functioning.'

Kon finally killed the handler and took command of the video buffer directly, figuring the damn thing needed to be re-written, and was halfway through the build process when he realized why the original video buffer handler was behaving so erratically.

Kon dropped control of everything else and poured all his resources into stabilizing and focusing the video feed from this one camera, through the kilometers of network cabling on the station, out to the antenna array and through the communications maser to the tightbeam receiver on the _Zangetsu_. The feed was grainy and the camera was not designed for long range image capture, but Kon was still able to catch a glimpse of it, moving through the city. Huge and dark and bulky, it lumbered through the smoke and shadows with all the grace of a beached fish, but one that was consumed with reaching its destination.

[Shock, Terror, Incredulity, Panic]

Kon zeroed out his emotion array as he frantically tried to get a comm channel back to Ichigo, even though he knew it was useless. He and Rukia and the others had left the comm equipment and were on their way through the cargo transfer tunnels by now. He did the equivalent of slamming his fists on the panel when he shut off the comm software and brought the video buffer back up staring at it, setting it to loop the best frames he'd managed to get. A massive, irregular shape of shifting darkness, blurry through the smoke, was squeezing itself through the transit lane entranceway at the bottom of a massive piece of structural engineering, 'D-2 Anchor – Main Ring Access' written above it. Even at this distance, with all the atmosphere of the station and buildings of the habitat obscuring his remote camera, Kon was sure of exactly what it was he was seeing.

Kon froze the feed on a singular frame. "You are in bigger trouble than you know," he said as a new value was written to his emotion array.

[Rage]

To be continued…


	29. (Re)United

With each labored breath she took her helmet was filled with the harsh clicking rattle of the suit's atmo-scrubbers. Compounded by aching muscles and fraying nerves, each struggling pant of exertion echoing within the confines of her flightsuit was slowly driving her mad. There were two pats against the object in front of her, vibrating through her hands, and they pulled her out of her brief reverie. Teeth clenched together, she set her hands again, ignoring the way the pads of her gloves cut hard against her fingers, and pushed. Slowly, the heavy plastisteel crosspiece that had fallen through the tunnel began to shift, raining down dust and crumbling chunks of durocrete. Rumbling back up into place, the same place they'd managed to push it once before it'd fallen, she was hoping that doing it again wouldn't unseat any more collapsed structure above them. Her attention drifting to the tons of metal and durocrete, plastisteel and ceramic polymer above them, the crosspiece slipped a fraction and Rukia pushed other thoughts from her mind, focusing on what was necessary, what she was used to doing: this was an obstacle and she would remove it. Arms burning, shaking with pain and exhaustion, she closed her eyes and grit her teeth.

It would send fire across her body, she knew it well, and still she did it anyway. Mentally opening the command system to her muscle implants, she overrode her nervous system and forced her muscles to obey. Throughout her arms, back and legs, the tiny nanofilament wires that threaded through her musculature, designed to let her have perfect control of her body when she needed, flared into brilliance, seizing up muscles and driving the crosspiece up and out of her way. It was agony, but she endured. She may have screamed, she wasn't certain.

Finally, she felt a judder through her hands as the heavy slab was secured underneath. Relaxing by degrees until she was sure the crosspiece wouldn't move, the heavy thing had been lifted up just high enough for her to slip underneath. They'd shut off their comms soon after entering the stretch of collapsed tunnel, an idea she'd come both loathe and praise simultaneously. On one hand, she considered as she bonelessly collapsed to the tunnel floor and eyed the gap they'd managed to make warily, they didn't have to listen to five other huffing, wheezing voices. The other hand, of course, meant that they were forced to resort to an impromptu sign language cobbled together from covert ops hand gestures, special forces silent indicatives and Free Spacer non-comm signs. A hand appeared beneath the crosspiece, tightly fisted. It opened palm down, and then pressed lower. It spun over and crooked its fingers towards her, beckoning her onward.

She gingerly edged beneath the precariously balanced plastisteel crosspiece, knowing somewhere faraway in the back of her mind that it had enough mass to crush any part of her unfortunate enough to be beneath it, should it slide from where they managed to prop it. Her hands squished into the muck that had accumulated at their feet, the angular velocity of the station pulling the water leaking from recycling systems ever further outwards, or in their case downwards. She was going to have to stay as low as possible to keep her weapon harness from catching on the crosspiece, her eyes staying on the massive slab as she began shimmying her way along through the mud and filth. Tucking her shoulders through the confines of the gap, the mud sucking uncomfortably at her suit, she reached for purchase to haul herself through. The gleam from helmet lamps played over the uneven crags and jutting angles of the short breach she was crawling through, the occasional shaft of light slicing across the faceplate of her helmet. She was breathing hard enough for condensation to build up on the inside of the glassite.

Her hand closed around a length of rebar, poking conveniently from another fallen section of durocrete, and she gently tested it, using it to leverage her body the rest of the way through the gap. Thankful for her narrow hips and slight frame, she set her other hand and began working her lower body the rest of the way beneath the heavy crosspiece. With a long exhale, she tilted her head up to catch the faces of the ones who'd preceded her, offering them a smile despite her exhaustion.

With a noise like crunching gravel, the rebar in her hand gave way.

Muck splattered her helmet as her hand-hold collapsed, sending her half-prone body gracelessly face-down into the brackish mud she'd been crawling through. A rumble all around her, like the deep cycle of a cargo vessel engine as it enters atmosphere, throbbed through her body, vibrating her teeth. The rocks and grit she felt pelting the back of her flightsuit sent a freezing chill that had nothing to do with temperature through her chest, seizing her heart, and she began frantically clawing her way forward. The crosspiece was falling, the rubble was shifting.

The tunnel was collapsing.

She didn't want to die here in the mud, buried under rubble, killed by the very station she was trying to save. The mud, however, had seeped up around her legs, clutching at her, holding her in place half-under the massive crosspiece. The cold dread of certainty snuffed out the fringe of fiery panic she felt, the soldier did not panic. She reached, her hooked fingers sinking into the mud ahead of her, and pulled with a strength that she presumed had fled her. Again, and again, in the space of heartbeats, she fought to drag herself from beneath the crosspiece as quickly as her battered body was able, fighting against the mental image of it shaking loose and falling to crush her. She may have screamed, she wasn't certain. A bone-jangling rumble of crunching durocrete filled the emptiness outside her helmet as her hands lost grip on the mud and the squishing pressure of mud on her suit vanished. Too seized by adrenalin to feel nauseated, she was nonetheless overcome by the sensation of falling.

Fingers grasping, clutching in the empty air for something to hold on to, to pull herself to safety with, her feet went kicking out behind her. Blinded by the mud smeared over her faceplate, all she could feel in the cloying darkness was the sensation of force against her body, whirled like a rag doll and out of control. A solidity crushed against her chest and instinctively her arms snapped against it, fingers digging to hold it, trying to anchor herself against the chaos. She was surrounded, enclosed in the dark and pressed in on all sides. A stillness settled over her here in the eye of the storm, encased by the deep dark, and amethyst-sapphire eyes that had been wide with fear narrowed in determination. She would not allow this broken, ruined station to be her tomb. Clarity of purpose, it seemed, sent a shudder up her spine as if she'd been doused with cold water.

The mud began to flow off her faceplate and she realized she really had been doused with cold water. Pipes from above them must have ruptured, sending a deluge of chilly water over her and as the mud was washed away the first thing she saw was Ichigo, holding her tightly against his chest. Her arms were around him, his armor-paneled flightsuit the thing that had crushed against her and his blood-smeared black mask staring down through her faceplate. Every line of his body was written with concern, from the angle of his skull-like helmet to the strength of the arms that had wrapped around her. The private channel she had running to him chimed and she opened it without even thinking.

A breath, a single breath, was all she heard over the comm. Hands tightened against her back. The moment went on. She smirked up at his helmet, well imagining his scowling eyebrows and pursed lips. "I had it under control."

"I know," he agreed. He made no move to remove his hands from around her, and she found herself unwilling to release him either. Regulating her breathing to something back under control, they stayed that way for a time as the water continued to pour down from above, streaming over the two of them.

Eventually, she felt a nudge against her shoulder and turned to see Renji motion with his helmet down the length of the mostly-clear, unobstructed train tunnel. She didn't bother responding to the look on his face they released each other, she didn't have time or inclination to nurse the pirate's bruised ego. Rolling her shoulders to try to loosen up knotted muscles, Rukia gave a mental flick of biofeedback and sent everyone a prompt to rejoin the local comm channel. "That's the interchange ahead," she said as they all accepted, and she resolutely planted one foot in front of the other.

"I hate to point out what seems like an oversight in your plan, Rukia," Renji said, breathing hard. He was trudging along a few paces behind her, watching the archway grow steadily larger. "But, how are we going to get into one of the cargo cars? I know you haven't got a key."

"We're not going to need one," was all Rukia said in reply, hoping her confidence wasn't misplaced. When no one spoke up in dissent, she chose to believe this was due to trust and not skepticism.

At the rear of the column as they headed down the tunnel, Ichigo remained silent.

Looking carefully about as they approached the mouth of the tunnel, peering into the massive cargo transfer point, the group keenly felt the absence of the solidity and security of the walls that had penned them in. As with most every other part of the station thus far, the light from up above was meager at best, the failing and sickly-yellow emergency lights occasionally flickering into absolute darkness. Thick snakes of grav-lev tracks crisscrossed beneath their feet while the huge cargo cars squatted still and heavy upon them, scattered across the yard. Past the cargo cars and dwarfing them as they loomed from the shadows at the far wall, poised like giant metal guardians, were the two cargo mech-loaders. Like the loader frames Ichigo had worn to work on the _Sode no Shirayuki_ in the week they'd spent in Urahara's service bay, they were similar in all aspects but scale, standing more than ten meters tall.

"We need to get up there," Rukia said, pointing overhead. "The Loadmaster's station."

As one, their eyes rose up above the two towering cargo loaders to the workstation perched like a vulture overlooking the entire railyard. Connected by bridges of skywalks leading off to the darkened recesses of the cargo transfer point's administrative offices, the Loadmaster's station was similar to every other facet of the cargo system they'd seen so far: unadorned, industrial and above all, functional.

Nods of various levels of enthusiasm were all the replies she garnered and she could tell the group was hesitant to emerge fully from the protective shadows of the tunnel arch. The few remaining emergency lights high up the walls threw disjointed patterns of light and shadow among the hulking cargo cars and across the skywalks. Any attempt to reach the Loadmaster's station would be fully exposed not only to the other dark train tunnels, but to the skywalks lost in shadow up above. Noticing something, Rukia braved a few paces into the railyard, being careful not to trip over the grav-lev tracks as she craned her eyes at the far wall.

"What is it?" Ichigo asked, seeing her intent look.

She turned and found him at her side. He had kept pace with her when the others had not. A brief smile touched her lips before she tilted her head towards the yawning darkness of the far wall, beyond the two mech-loaders. "Look, the doors are open. The Imp must still be here."

Ichigo raised his head to look where she'd pointed, the optics on his helmet adjusting to pierce the gloom. Beyond the tall cargo loaders, on the far side of the rail yard there were two massive cargo bay doors standing open. "Huh," Ichigo said, "I'd never seen the bottom floor of the Impelator before." As large as a small cargo ship in its own right, the massive Impelator was the huge two-story elevator car that traveled through the ring pylon between the main habitat and the outer docking ring. Aligned with the surface and sub level transit systems, the top floor was for civilian traffic while the cavernous bottom level was reserved for cargo containers coming in and going out through the docking rings.

She and Ichigo moved back closer to the others, the finer points of her plan beginning to formulate in her mind. They had just set foot back in the safety of the tunnel darkness when they heard it over their suit mics, faint and far but unmistakable through the stillness and silence of the abandoned cargo transfer point. Somewhere on the floors above them, an automatic door was sliding open, then closed, then open again. They looked at one another, the knowledge that they were not alone settling over them like a dark cloud, dispelling their illusion of safety in obscurity.

Toshiro eased his weapon from the holster at his side, doing his best not to let the catch snap too loudly. "We need to keep moving," he whispered into the comm.

"I agree, listen up," Rukia said, schooling her features back into a visage of seriousness. She had enough experience diverting these cars for Urahara that she felt she knew the system pretty well, and her plan was contingent on that confidence. "I'll go up the ladder from the mech-loader service bay," she said, pointing off to the side. "From there I can get to the skywalks that lead to the Loadmaster's station. The cars have a backup, onboard powerplant to drive with, but I'll need get one set up on the right track."

"So what do we do?" Toshiro asked. There was a healthy measure of skepticism in his tone but he wasn't outwardly rebuking her.

"Stay here and get ready to move when I say." She caught the looks of uncertainty on their faces. "I'll be fast."

A sound of shuffling and clattering echoed from above and they all irrationally hushed their voices and ducked lower. "You're not going up there alone," Ichigo uttered, just shy of vehemence.

Instead of being touched by his thoughtfulness, Rukia spun on him with an angry glare. "I can handle myself just fine, Ichigo!" she snapped harshly, careful to keep her voice from carrying beyond her helmet.

"The point of having a partner is that there is someone to watch your back, Rukia!" Ichigo replied, unwilling to budge. The sound of shattering glass tinkled from the halls up above and Ichigo motioned to indicate the obviousness of the situation.

"He's right hun," Rangiku said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"You should take someone with you," Renji agreed, but Rukia heard the careful lack of inflection in his voice as he looked out into the railyard, eyes anywhere but on her or Ichigo.

Mollified somewhat, she huffed out a breath as she glanced among them, finally fixing Ichigo with a stare. "Uryu, you're with me, the rest of you find some cover and keep quiet." She caught the slight motion of Ichigo's shoulders, a mixture of hurt, confusion and betrayal, and opened up the private comm to him. "He moves the quietest," she explained, smoothing ruffled feelings as she removed the weapon from her harness. "Besides, I need you down here. Think you can pop the locks like you did on that space marine's locker?" Her eyes flicked to him and caught his shoulders relax at her sardonic query.

Ichigo guffawed, "That's your plan? I don't think I have to tell you the difference between a basic junk-keyed tumbler and the ones on a cargo container, do I?"

Rukia laughed, the hardness of her glare melting beneath the light of mischief in her eyes. "Not those locks," was all she replied over the shared channel. She flipped over to their private one and told him what she wanted him to do, quickly and succinctly without room for objection. Once done, she tapped Uryu on the shoulder and slipped out of the tunnel.

Uryu stepped over to Ichigo and held out the strap of the bulky black bag he'd been lugging around this whole time. "Don't lose this," he said simply, watching Ichigo flash him an obscene gesture even as he hoisted the bag onto his shoulder. Uryu clapped him on the other, more professionally than companionably, before slipped out after Rukia, his pale radiation cape fluttering in his wake.

Ichigo remained there for a long moment, watching her sprint off through the flickering light. He set the bag more comfortably on his shoulder and turned his gaze to the darkness in the distance. "She can't be serious."

Moving noiselessly away from the others, Rukia let her black flightsuit melt her into the shadows, slipping from one cargo car to the next. While she kept checking her surroundings for movement, her eyes inevitably would flick over to the loaders hulking in the darkness. They were massive skeletons made of metal and hydraulics hanging there from their armatures, coils of tubing and umbilicals connecting across their backs and shoulders. She turned her eyes away, stomach twisting, the image of it eerily similar to what she'd seen in a dream. Shaking her attention back on mission, she aimed a two-finger point off to their side at their target. The service ladders up the side of the loader's maintenance bays went past the operator access railings, all the way up to the skywalk level, but there would no cover until they crested the top of the ladder. As soon as she caught Uryu's nod, she went sprinting off across the railyard.

At the foot of the rungs, she swung around with her back to the bay wall, eyes meeting Uryu's before flicking upwards. Off the skywalk level was the main lobby and a number of halls, all darkened by power loss. Whatever it was that making those noises, it was coming from there, from the administrative offices of the cargo transfer point. He drew his weapon, an odd, but still lethal looking contraption that bore some resemblance to the energy weapon she'd seen affixed to his ship. He rested it in the crook of his arm and gave a curt nod, sighting along the skywalks above them. Blowing a breath, she holstered her own weapon in the harness at the small of her back and began climbing. Feeling remarkably exposed, she hurried up the ladder to the middeck of the service bay and scurried over to the meager cover provided by the nearest control console, putting her back against its solidity before whispering into her comm, "Okay, go." She felt foolish for whispering, no one could hear them through the helmets, but growing up slinking among the ruins of Junrinan's moons' decaying metropolises had instilled certain habits that were difficult to break.

Uryu crested the lip of the ladder and knelt down across from her, at the railing that led along the outside edge. Like the rest of the railings and skywalks above, it was unadorned and functional, made of welded bare metal and slatted grating and would leave them without cover of any sort for the entire time it took them to get to the Loadmaster's station level. Readying herself for the next leg of their dash up to the skywalk level, she found herself glancing back to the tunnels they'd emerged from, the bare, simple metal framing the figures in the distance.

The sheen of Ichigo's eyeports flashed back at her, glowing amber in the dim light. He was watching over her. A system-link notice appeared in her vision, blipping into existence and hovering silently, awaiting her acknowledgement. Perplexed, she checked and found Ichigo's odd, biomodifed security token registered to it. Wondering what in the worlds could be so important that he'd interrupt her in the middle of an operation, and what system he was trying to load to her link, she popped it open with a biofeedback command, her hands finding and climbing the rungs of the ladder. What she got was not what she'd expected.

Expanding like a sphere around her head, glowing lines and arcs quickly traced their way through her vision, limning all the major structural areas of the cargo transfer station's interior. From there, sightlines and tactical information began spooling down, detailing hallway and door junctures, complete with glowing arcs of fire and occlusion, all formatted to sync with her neural targeting system and micro-muscle control implants. He was running logistics for her from the sensors in his helmet, the same as if he were piloting and she were at her tactical station, all of it on the fly and compressed through their private comm channel. Privately amazed, she took the time to glance around the cargo transfer point, studying the infofeed, then looked back at him to see him give her an encouraging nod.

Uryu might be the one up here with me, she thought, but it is Ichigo who's the one that's still my partner, and she would not let him down. She nodded back, checked through the interface for any trace of movement, and then set off again up the ladder. Pairing stealth with speed, she climbed to the skywalk as swiftly as she was able, Uryu following as soon as she'd stepped off. She found his solid focus and professionalism a reassuring presence at her back, and they both checked the connecting skywalks around them, half-hidden in gloom and shadow, for any signs of hostile contacts.

"I'll cover you, Miss White," Uryu said, falling back to using her callsign.

"Thank you, Bowman." Rukia caught him straighten slightly as she used the title. She knew it must have been decades since the QNC fleet had been under the command of the nobility, and Uryu himself had probably never been addressed by it directly. Now he was all that remained of the once proud imperial fleet and Rukia felt privately honored to be the one who once again called on his service. From the set of his shoulders and the determination on his face, she could tell that she was not the only who felt that way.

Blowing one more steadying breath, Rukia slipped out from where she'd crouched, moving along the metal grating of the skywalk towards their destination. The nearest juncture leading to the Loadmaster's station required a roundabout route and the grating vibrated beneath her boots with every step despite how careful they were not to let the sound of their footfalls echo in the vast chamber. They carefully moved along the skywalk as far they could, then crouched and weighed their options. To go further they'd have to slip across the mouth of the lobby area, a vast emptiness swallowed by shadow, and as they silently debated a sound over their suit mics froze them in place.

Somewhere nearby, echoing down the halls and through the darkness of the lobby, came the sound of wet, fleshy thudding. Her mouth suddenly dry, the only thing Rukia could liken it to was someone, past all reason, pass all sensation of pain, mindlessly pounding their fist on a door. Alarmed at the proximity of such a sound, Rukia met Uryu's eye, then looked over his shoulder at the Loadmaster's station suspended out from the skywalks, situated over the whole transfer point. There could not possibly be a more exposed location, she groused mentally. From the echoes, there was no way to tell which direction the sound was coming from, even Ichigo's computed overlay was having trouble isolating it, so she was forced to simply grit her teeth and soldier on.

Soldier on. She'd been doing that her whole life. From the time she and her sister had been eking out a living among the shambles of the Outer Orbits, through her heavy-handed tutoring as a member of the nobility, through her sister's deteriorating health and finally through her time in the Colonial Naval Academy. She'd learned to weather hardship and do her duty, despite anything.

Because everything else had been taken from her.

She shook her head and moved to peek around the corner. She had to focus on her mission, always the mission. She couldn't afford to wallow in maudlin emotion remembering her past.

Remembering her sister.

Remembering her old life.

Remembering the look on her brother's face when last they spoke, watching the wreckage of the _Sode no Shirayuki_ spill across the starry sky. The way she'd felt when she thought her partner was dead.

Her fingers trembled, something that her muscle control implants should have made impossible, as the word 'partner' floated through her mind, this time dredging up more than just surface level associations. Ichigo had not been her first partner. Her fingers shook again, her mind's eye switching his hair color from orange to black. Did Ichigo know the weight of that word, she wondered, glancing down at him. Did he realize everything it meant to her? Did he know what had happened to the few that she'd called partner before? Her eyes flicked to the shadows behind Ichigo, over to Renji. One was here, their history together now just an ache in her heart that had been dulled by time. She closed her eyes, knowing it was the only place she could find second one, still able to see his cocky smile and messy black hair from the pilot's station even after all this time. She opened her eyes and looked to Ichigo again. Did he realize what _he_ meant to her?

She knew her concentration had been broken as she forced herself to look up, peeking around the edge of the wall as Ichigo's borrowed visual interface spun data to her own targeting system, filling the darkness with streams of glowing information. She told herself she was an operative of the G-13, a soldier trained to fight an enemy no one else could, an enemy that had infiltrated this station. She reminded herself that it was her mission to see this through, to do whatever it took to succeed. All the while thought, there was a small voice in the back of her head that kept incessantly asking 'at what cost?' There was one thing that hadn't been taken from her yet, is this the mission that would take it from her?

She could hear the shuffling and thudding coming from down the halls but there wasn't anything in her field of view, her neural link's targeting reticle skimming through her vision continually trying to isolate a target. With a motion of her hand she gave Uryu the signal to roll around her and move across the wide mouth of the lobby entrance. For all his proficiency at ship combat, she could tell he was unused to small arms operations. It was obvious as he moved with a precise but rapid pace, the young man holding his weapon at the ready, his eyes switching from hall to hall, expectantly.

Fighting the distractions of her memories and gnawing sense of unease, she almost missed the signal from Uryu once he was in position on the other side. Keeping low and refocusing her attention on her surroundings, she crossed in Uryu's wake while the vigilante covered the darkness of the lobby with his weapon. Thus far uneventful, Rukia hoped their luck would continue as the two shifted away from the lobby and around the edge of the railing, moving onto the skywalk bridge that led towards the Loadmaster's station.

"So far, so good," Uryu said, echoing her thoughts, as they cautiously moved down the metal grating and came to a stop at the large console.

"Looks like they left in a hurry," Rukia mentioned. She stared mournfully at a cup of coffee sitting cold and lonely upon the surface, among several maintenance tools had been scattered about.

"Did they leave the workstation unlocked?" he asked, keeping his eyes moving from the dark lobby, over towards the office blocks, and back to the shadowy halls.

She didn't immediately respond, lightly touching the contact plate and activating the console. The screen brightened up but the rest of the bank remained off, the red notice of 'Critical Power Failure: Emergency Access Only' hovering there as the system status. One of her eyebrows rose as she deadpanned, "In a way."

A clattering of tumbling furniture made them both jump, then immediately duck behind the console. Something was clumsily crashing around in the recesses of the lobby across from them. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly," he said.

Eyes peeking up over the pointboard, Rukia lifted her hand and pressed it to the contact plate again, this time pulling down her security token and supplying it to the system prompt. The status flickered, shifting to display 'Access Denied' in bold red letters. She swore, inwardly and colorfully. According to the station, and the M.I.C. in general, her navel commission was still rescinded along with her official security token rights.

"How much time?" Uryu asked. His eyes were still scanning the darkness, looking for a target.

"I need thirty seconds," Rukia whispered. She pulled up her keyring, flicking through it and replacing her security token with Urahara's code for freight transfer access. He'd doctored up the permissions it had been assigned, making it far more powerful than what was needed to simply divert cargo containers. The status display blinked into a green 'Access Granted: Welcome Captain Urahara.' Rukia shook her head at Kisuke's endless audacity.

"I'm detecting movement," Uryu mentioned, "At the far side of the lobby." His outward calm was underpinned by notes of growing concern.

"Stay down," Rukia said, sitting awkwardly with her hand still touching the plate above her head. Uryu crouched next to her, fingers flexing on the grip of his weapon, anxiety creeping into his posture. Doing her best to ignore him, she pulled up the default set of system panels in her neural link instead of the console's displays and they all blipped to life around her, each bearing the header 'Emergency Management.' She nearly snorted at the irony of it. Upon activating the track relay screen, she was helpfully informed that the Loadmaster's station was in power recovery mode and that all cargo transfer tasks had been suspended, which she immediately dismissed. A holo-display of the railyard appeared in her vision hovering a meter in front of her, responding as she turned it around and overlaid it with the tracks that led to the navel sector of the station. Picking the right track, she zoomed in on the yard display again and poked her finger at the small glowing representation of a cargo car, sitting inert on the track. "This one."

She waited a beat, then poked it again. Frowning, she sent a biofeedback command for activation at the car. Still nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" Uryu whispered, catching the look on her face.

"Nothing," she lied. A final poke at the system triggered another helpfully informative display appearing in her vision, and reading it made her heart sink. 'Power State Insufficient' it read, and below it was the option to enable the cargo yard's independent backup generators. "Okay, something."

"What's the situation up there?" Toshiro demanded, his voice biting over the comm line.

"I need everyone with a weapon to form up down there at car..." she consulted her hovering screens once more, "Three-six-A-dash-four, and cover the lobby, the side halls and the lower tunnels, just in case."

"Just in case of what?" Renji demanded.

"I'm about to compromise our position," she explained, as clinically as she was able.

There was a long pause before Renji finally succumbed to temptation and asked, "Why?"

"The cars are self-powered, but the rail track controls are not. In order to get a car on the right track I need to power up the whole yard." She leaned out around the console, peering down at the mouth of the tunnel they'd come through.

"You sure you have to do the whole thing?" Rangiku asked.

"It's all or nothing, maybe I could eventually figure out how to route power to run individual tracks, but we don't have that kind of time."

There was another pause before Toshiro came back on the comm line. "Copy, car three-six-alpha-dash-four."

Well, Rukia thought to herself, at least they were all going to be in it together. "Ichigo, you know you're part in this?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm on it. So how much noise is that going to make?" Ichigo's voice was low and calm.

She looked over the railing and down at the yard, Ichigo walking with the others along the tracks. Renji, Rangiku and Toshiro had drawn their weapons and were moving cautiously, eyes alert and scanning for movement. Ichigo, from the relaxed way he'd hooked his hands on the panels at his thighs, could have been taking a stroll on the docking ring. His helmet rose to meet her glance, as if he could feel her eyes on him. "A lot," she admitted.

"We are in position," Toshiro announced.

"You ready?" Rukia asked Uryu. He nodded and with a flick of his finger, activated the cap chargers down the length of his weapon. "Okay," she said and firmly pushed her command to the Loadmaster's station, firing up the backup generator systems. From all round her, deafening like rifle shots firing in sequence, she could hear the loud snaps of breakers switching circuits. The murky yellow of the emergency lights was replaced with brilliant white as the main lights flickered on above them, Rukia blinking in the sudden glare. Red strobes began flashing across the railyard, safety and warning lights mounted everywhere demanding attention. Rukia privately agreed: This was definitely very wrong. She nearly jumped when the sirens began wailing. She stood instead, wincing as the alarms blared across the cargo yard, and pushed the control screens back to the console. One hand on the contact plate, the other setting her weapon down to dance her fingertips across the pointboard, she finalized her cargo car route commands, setting the track for the Northern Navel Sector cargo point and unlocking the moorings on the sled she'd picked.

"Hot contact!" Uryu's voice was sharp and she was holding her weapon again before she'd realized it. Looking up from the displays, she peered over the top of the Loadmaster's station and stared into the mouth of the lobby across from them. The lights were flickering on throughout the building, the cool sterility of the station's lighting chasing away the darkness while exposing them to the nightmares that had hid within.

"Oh... God..." she uttered. The walls, the carpets, the office windows, the workstations and desks, tables, chairs, everything. Everything was spattered with blood. From far down one of the halls, a door opened.

She had her hands braced and weapon sighted in less than a second, the targeting reticle in her vision locked down the sights of her barrel while her implant's control fibers woven through her muscles steadied her aim. There was something moving in the darkness beyond the open doorway and Rukia waited for the shot, she didn't have ammunition to spare and needed a clean line. Ichigo's visual interface shifted suddenly, something going wrong as the computed firing arcs blurrily diverged, a conflict arising between her targeting system and Ichigo's interface. Frustrated, she pushed away the link data as her finger tightened on the trigger. She didn't need her link to shoot at this range.

The shape in the darkness beyond the door shifted, shuffling nearer to the door, and Rukia eased her breath out, exhaling to put her body perfectly under control. A glint of light shined in her eye, making her twitch. She ignored it, lining up her shot. The glint sparkled, refracting off the clear glassite of her helmet. Irritated, she loosened up her body as the figure down the hall stumbled forward. Gritting her teeth, Rukia shifted to line up her shot again, leaning on the console to brace herself, something jabbing her in the side as a result. Cursing, she glanced down to see what had prodded her, ready to knock it away.

Of the tools that had been left behind, a heavy wrench had slid across the incline of the console and was pressing against her side. The soldier in her demanded she focus and fire, to do her duty, to eliminate her enemy. But the wrench, why couldn't she tear her eyes away from the wrench? She shifted her shoulders and settled her aim again, the shape beyond hesitating. Hesitating? Why? She glanced back to the wrench. It was a fitter wrench and an image flickered through her mind, the pale outline of a scar. Ichigo's scar. He'd been at the Miner's Coalition riots providing medical relief, he'd been injured just trying to help. Ichigo, his linked interface was still conflicting with her targeting system and in a flash, she realized what it was trying to tell her, and her finger eased off the trigger.

Her target stumbled from the darkness of the office, limping across the skywalk towards her, other shapes behind moving, emerging into the light, and the icy hand around her heart clenched tighter. That cold, unfeeling sterility of the soldier in her mind was a refuge, a safe place to go that she could rely on to execute whatever orders she'd been given. Whether it'd been tracking down marks for Renji, playing the part of the noble princess for Byakuya, or hunting down Hollows for Captain Ukitake, she'd let the soldier in her fill that role.

It had been Ichigo, headstrong, brash but ultimately noble Ichigo that had taught her that playing the role really wasn't the same as living a life. She'd been relying on it for so long she hadn't considered there could be any alternative, but she'd been wrong. He'd seen the danger on their first meeting, recognized the necessity when he'd been offered their partnership, and gave everything he had just to help her. He'd been thrown in jail, been branded a criminal, consorted with pirates and vigilantes, had watched his friend die, and nearly been killed by her own brother all just to help her protect the people of this system. It was Ichigo that reminded her that she didn't need to rely on the cold soldier within her, to shut down her feelings and emotions, to close herself off from everyone and everything. This wasn't hostile territory and she wasn't assaulting an enemy.

She was protecting her home.

All this came to her as she tipped the nose of her weapon up, her eyes widening as more figures came barreling out of the darkness and into the hallway. Survivors. The soldier in her had nearly shot a survivor.

"Non..." Rukia cleared her throat, eyes still wide on the approaching group. "Non-combatants, repeat non-combatants in the area."

"What the hell is going on up there?" Toshiro demanded.

"Remain in position," Uryu said, lowering his weapon and eyeing the people desperately running towards them.

"Oh please help us, you have to help us," a woman whimpered, stumbling towards them. She was streaked with grime and dust, her hair disheveled and clothing torn. She wore an emergency atmo mask strapped to her face, but beneath its clear plate her skin had taken on an ashen pallor while the whites were visible all around her eyes. Panicked and terror stricken, she nearly collapsed at Rukia's feet, barely held up by her free arm, the girl sobbing and heaving for breath.

Rukia turned her face up from the woman and stared at Uryu, a weapon in one hand and a broken mess of a civilian in the other, stamping a 'what-do-I-do-now?' look on her face while hoping that he'd have some idea. He was already moving to help the woman to her feet, deftly getting her to release her hands from fisting further into Rukia's flightsuit and gallantly helping her to catch her breath. He had just managed to get the woman to use the railing to support herself with when they were suddenly confronted by half a dozen scared and injured people pouring from the lobby hall, all with emergency air masks and looks of panic on their faces.

"Please, are you with the police?" the woman begged them.

"I'm with the Navy," Rukia answered over her suit's speakers, trying vainly to sound reassuring.

"Oh thank you," she sobbed, "I don't know what's happening! The station, and the people, what they did…" Her eyes were tearing up as she reached for Rukia's suit like a lifeline, Uryu managing to intercept her again. "We've been hiding, we thought we'd be safe here..." She glanced back at the hall they'd run through, spattered with blood and gore and then nearly vomited.

Screams and shouts erupted from the group approaching them across the skywalk, the handful of people realizing something was at their backs. Looking past them, Rukia could see the hasty barricade of furniture, inside the now well-lit office, blocking off the far door being knocked violently down and spindly, bony arms reaching through. There was no mistaking these misshapen silhouettes, she was sure of it this time. The Hollowfied, alerted by the noise and light, had found them and were clawing their way closer.

"Get these people out of here!" Rukia ordered Uryu, breaking away from the cluster of people and sighting her weapon down the hall. Terror had gripped the survivors as they fell back, falling over themselves to get away from the things crawling over the barricade and into the office.

"This way," Uryu announced, herding them away down the other side of the skywalk, heading for an alternate route to the ladders leading to the service bays. They were more than willing to follow any authority they could find.

"People? You're sending those people down here?" came the inevitable question in her ear.

"We've got a situation up here," she announced as she fought her way through the tide of people, keeping her eyes on the shambling non-people falling through a breach they'd made. As a group, they rose and began stumbling towards her, all limp hair, sunken cheeks, dead eyes and tattered softsuits. "A big situation."

"Report your target count," came Toshiro's clipped demand. It was clear he wasn't used to taking orders.

"Six hostiles on single approach," Rukia replied, raising her weapon. "More inbound, no doubt."

"I'm coming to you," Renji called out.

"You will do no such thing," Rukia shot back, her eyes narrowed down the ironsights as she took a knee, lining up her shot. "You will remain in position and assist in the evac of those non-combatants."

"This isn't a goddamn rescue mission, Kuchiki!" Toshiro fumed.

"The operational parameters of this mission just expanded," Rukia said evenly, and her voice was the wind off a glacier as her finger tightened on the trigger. She exhaled, she fired and the gunshot rang out like a clarion call, she inhaled. "Five hostiles. Ichigo, report your status." One of the Hollowfied lurching towards her had collapsed in the lobby, her gunshot blowing out its knee in a spray of ichorous blood. The others behind it paid it no mind, callously stumbling over it as they came into the lobby. "Ichigo, report!"

"Yeah yeah, I'm set here," he said negligently, though his voice was strained, as though from effort or pain. "You doing alright up there?" he asked, sounding far more interested in her than anything else.

Two more gunshots rang out. "I need supporting fire," she said. How she'd managed to sound as calm as she had, she had no idea. She'd managed to hit another two more lurching bodies, but neither had slowed up much, they were still advancing at her at a terrifying pace.

"Uryu left you up there?"

"Would you rather I'd left these people?" Uryu shot back, doing his best to get a group of civilians down the service ladder in an orderly fashion.

"Fall back!" Toshiro yelled into the comm, "Draw them out further!"

Rukia turned to sprint down the further skywalk, but barely made it two steps before skidding to a stop. The large plate glass window that looked out into the loading dock shattered beneath the weight of three, gaunt sallow-skinned bodies. The shards of glass cut and shredded softsuit and flesh alike, but it made no difference. Before she knew it, the trio of Hollowfied were lurching across the connecting the skywalk towards her, shuffling ungainly and staring at her, cutting off her escape route. "Shit." She checked the ammunition count on the side of her weapon and, if possible, became further discouraged.

"Take cover, Kuchiki," Toshiro ordered, a second before opening fire.

Rukia dropped to the metal grating of the skywalk as the shots rang out, coming from his placement down in the railyard below. The zips and rings of ricochets flew past uncomfortably close, and Rukia dared a glance at the two groups of approaching Hollowfied. The angle from below was bad but he'd managed to wound several, dropping them to the skywalk to claw and crawl their way along, but none of them had been incapacitated. What was worse, those that had fallen were now effectively out of Toshiro's line of sight. Rukia rolled back to the Loadmaster's station, the spot furthest away from both groups, and drew her weapon on the closest target.

"Cease fire, cease fire," came another command over the comm. Rukia looked over to see Uryu crest the top of service bay level, the highest vantage point possible without making the long climb to the skywalk level.

"You're not in a position of authority," Hitsugaya muttered, "You can't make that call." Still, Toshiro raised his weapon as he shot a scornful look the vigilante's way.

"Call it a suggestion then," Uryu replied easily, setting the barrel of his long, odd looking weapon in the crook of his elbow. "I also suggest that you take immediate cover behind that console, Miss White."

Rukia's eyebrows shot up as he swung the weapon up, leveled directly at her. She immediately dropped to the grating floor of the skywalk, tucking herself under the eave of the console. "Okay, I hope," she called out, making sure every part of her body was fully concealed behind the the console. In front of her, she could see the Hollowfied approaching not more than five meters away, staring at her with dull, rheumy eyes as their jaws worked mindlessly, reaching towards he with clawed hands. "If you're gonna do something, do it fast."

"Ahem," Uryu said, his tone clipped and proper. "Fire in the hole."

She recognized the whine that climbed quickly in volume and pitch as cap-chargers firing in sequence, a second before a bright, blinding white light filled the train yard, strobing a dozen times a second. The stuttering of relief breakers, like a constantly shuffling deck of cards, filled the air as Rukia turned away from the harsh glare. Lasting four, perhaps five seconds, the blue-white light suddenly winked out and the sound of relief breakers and cap-chargers vanished, replaced only by the sound of a spent energy source cycling down.

"What..." Ichigo's voice broke their momentary stunned silence, "The hell... was that?"

"There was a call for suppressing fire, I obliged."

Rukia clambered gingerly out from beneath the shelter of the console, staring at the skywalks that had been caught in Uryu's blast. The Hollowfied were little more than charred, smoking ash in the rough shape of bodies and the facing edges of the skywalks glowed a dull orange. She looked over to the white-clad vigilante to see him swing his weapon up to his shoulder and nod respectfully.

Ichigo, however, was not one to simply let this go. "You're idea of suppressing fire is to... to... to _atomize_ everything? While Rukia was in the way? You could've hurt someone, asshole!"

"That was the point," Rukia smartly interjected. She stepped carefully over towards the skywalk that would lead her back down the service ladder, but stopped abruptly as the grating creaked beneath her feet.

"Hot contact!" Uryu shouted suddenly, his eyes aimed directly at the far end of the lobby. The cargo transfer point main doors had collapsed under the weight of dozens more Hollowfied, drawn by the noise and chaos. They came shuffling through the lobby, their eyes set on Rukia.

"I need an alternate exit here," she said. She felt remarkably alone, the only human on the skywalk level and facing a filthy, shambling mass of bloody and decomposing Hollowfied. The skywalk creaked again, the metal beginning to warp from the heat of Uryu's energy weapon, and Rukia took another prudent step back.

"My weapon needs to recharge to do that again," Uryu said, flipping a small toggle on the grip. "But in the mean time..."

"Ichigo?" she called out into the comm. "Think you could lend me a hand?"

"Yeah yeah," he replied testily, obviously distracted from what he was doing.

Mildly shocked, Uryu turned to look where he'd last seen Ichigo, then realized the black suited man wasn't around anywhere. "You know, I'd be much more comfortable taking your criticism, Kurosaki, if you had deigned to participate in the first place."

The mass of Hollowfied had reached the lip of the skywalk and were unerringly bearing down on Rukia, who stood less than ten meters away, essentially trapped on the island of the Loadmaster's station. The grating groaned in protest as they shuffled onto it, their combined weight and damage from Uryu's weapon weakening the entire structure. Rukia gripped the handrail at her back and watched, waiting, as the horde of Hollowfied came closer across the blackened, superheated bridge. "Sooner is better than later, Ichigo!" she called out, sliding her weapon into the holster at her back.

They all heard several loud clunks and then the spinning purr of flywheels and gryoscopes followed by Ichigo's exclamation of, "Alright! I got your evac, or extract, or whatever the fuck you call it right here. Take a good look Ishida, I'm _participating_."

From his vantage point atop the service bay's highest maintenance level, Uryu couldn't see anything aside from Rukia backed up all the way against the railing of the Loadmaster's station and a teeming mass of Hollowfied lurching and clawing their way down the skywalk directly at her. He sighted and braced, pulling the trigger and sending a flash of blue-white light lancing through the air, momentarily connecting him to his target with a thin line of energy. His target dropped to the grating, a hole cauterized neatly through its head, but the ones behind simply trampled over it. "There's too many!" he cried. Her only option was the long drop to the trainyard level below.

The skywalk shook and groaned under the weight of the Hollowfied atop it, and Rukia could see it would not hold up much longer. The Hollowfied had closed to within six meters, and she glanced over her shoulder at the long fall to the railyard, and said, "This had better work, Ichigo." She set her hands and swung her legs lithely over the railing. Turning about, her feet braced against the edge of the skywalk and her hands clasping the rail, she waited until the Hollowfied were nearly upon her, their dead eyes locked on her, their mouths slavering as if hungry for a meal. She held her breath, and let go.

"Miss Kuchiki!" Uryu screamed, surging forward to grip the handrail of the level he was on. He watched her fall, arms outstretched, away from the Loadmaster's station, plummeting downwards.

Until, suddenly, she wasn't. Uryu blinked and tried to adjust his glasses but was prevented by the faceplate of his helmet, all while he struggled to understand just what had happened.

"Gotcha," he heard over the comm line, just as Rukia sat up from where she was, having fallen only a meter from the skywalk. Looking tiny, sitting in the palm of a giant mechanical hand, Rukia adjusted her flightsuit before looking up at the deeper darkness below the skywalks and past the rail cars. Brilliant yellow sodium lamps flared like eyes in the dark, and from the shadows moved one of the massive cargo mech-loaders, its hand outstretched to catch the young woman and Ichigo belted firmly into the pilot's harness. "Told ya I would."

Rukia smiled in spite of herself, then quickly schooled her features back to business. Hanging onto part of the massive metal hand beneath her, she turned back in the direction of the cargo car, taking in the situation. "You still have a job to do," she reminded him, and hung on tightly as the huge mech-loader pivoted on its armature, taking them closer to where everyone was waiting. With the mech-loader's free hand, Ichigo reached over and set it against the service points of the container, ratcheting the locks closed before lifting it entirely off the top of the sled. From her perch, Rukia stood and stared down at the others. "See? I told you we wouldn't need a key." Her confident tone and sure smile wavered a bit, seeing shadows shifting in the tunnels at their periphery.

"Get those people on the sled, now!" Toshiro ordered, "Multiple contacts!" No sooner had he issued the order than he had swung his weapon to point into the nearest tunnel mouth, taking a bead on a gaunt, lank haired and bloodcaked Hollowfied figure. The sound of gunfire and screams filled the thin air, civilians scrambling up on top of the flat grav-sled while Toshiro, Rangiku, and Renji held off the approaching figures. Uryu, rejoining them, followed up with precision blasts of his energy pistol once he'd crested the sled.

Moving the mech-loader as close as he was able, the giant industrial waldo it was mounted to whirring as it went, Ichigo prepared to do what he could to help. He could see Rukia drawing her weapon and bracing against the massive 'fingers' of the loader's hand, ready to fire as soon as she had a shot. He was just about to comment when a tremor shook the cargo yard, jostling Rukia and throwing the people on the sled to their knees. The rapid gunfire quickly came to a halt, everyone tense and expectant. Bafflingly, even the Hollowfied froze in place. "What was that?" Ichigo asked into the sudden stillness.

"They're... falling back?" Rangiku said, tilting her head.

The Hollowfied that had come crawling through the darkness of the train tunnels were slinking back, moving steadily away from the train yard. Looking up above, the Hollowfied that had been stuck up on the skywalks after Rukia's jump to safety were also leaving, in as much haste as they're desiccated bodies were capable of.

Another massive tremor shook the railyard again, and the Hollowfied nearly fell over each other in their retreat. Watching them in confusion from the pilot's harness of the mech-loader, Ichigo straightened up the huge machine as he shifted his posture. "It's almost like they're running away."

"Yeah," Renji agreed, "But, what could possibly make those things turn tail like that?" The comm channel shared among them hissed and popped with a blare of distortion at the end of Renji's question.

"WHAT."

The voice over the comm channel was heavy and thunderous, pounding through their aural implants right at the range of acceptable volume. The channel was filled with exclamations of pain and surprise, all of them holding their helmets in defense of the sound and pressure. The civilians, shaken and jittery, watched them in nervous confusion, unsure of what exactly was going on. Their confusion was immediately forgotten, however, as another, far more powerful quake shook through the railyard and left them clutching the top of the grav-sled.

"Someone's broken into the comm channel," Uryu gasped, shaking his head from the noise. "We need to-"

"WHAT."

A shaft of light speared through the Impelator car's roof with another, final tremor. Instead of ending, this one went rolling on and on as the roof of the car began to cave in with the slow, tortured rumble of heavy things collapsing beneath their own weight, the six companions and their rescued civilians all watching in mute spectacle.

Smoke and dust billowed through the wide open cargobay doors, filling the railyard room with a brown-grey haze. On instinct, Ichigo lifted the hovercar-sized hand of the mech-loader to block the plume of dust and debris that came rolling from the Impelator car. He could see Rukia shift in his other palm, lifting herself up to get a better a vantage point.

"I think the answer to Renji's question just arrived." Rukia turned her face up towards Ichigo's their eyes meeting through eyeports and glassite, wordlessly exchanging the gravity of the situation.

"WHAT."

The voice screamed in their helmets, far louder than before and sending all of them to their knees.

"Get on that sled, we are leaving, NOW!" Toshiro ordered, teeth clenched against the ringing in his skull.

"Something..." Ichigo muttered, leaning the huge mech-loader over, peering in interest through the eyeports of his masked helmet. "Something's in there..." The voice, he realized, while deafeningly loud was also unmodulated and utterly flat. Almost like it had been synthesized. But that would only make sense if-

The mountain of debris that the Impelator car had become, shifted as something moved beneath it. The huge sheets of metal paneling that had been torn from the sides of the car tented up, displaced as something rose up from the wreckage. Red lights, flaring from the shadows under the debris, flickered and blinked like so many eyes, all of them rolling madly in their sockets. Broken bits of the Impelator housing slid from atop it, the gigantic mass of it moving with a sudden, frightening speed, lifting itself up from the ruined lower deck of the car and throwing off the last of the concealing wreckage.

"That's..." Ichigo breathed, "Impossible."

"WHAAAT." The voice, like agony made manifest, wailed at them with a crushing, blasting pressure.

A nightmare melding of metal and bone, of muscle, flesh, and sinew grafted to steel, actuator, and piston, glowered at them from a dozen different baleful vermillion eyes. Huge and ghastly, bulging and quivering masses of flesh and undulating organs worked in horrid concert with cold steel and hydraulics, a monstrous mockery of both the living and the not. It moved forward, and every interplay of machine and muscle was sickening and unnatural, was so utterly _wrong._

"Ichigo," Rukia whispered, gripping the edge of the giant mech-loader's hand, "Is that...?"

"Yes," Ichigo said, and a hiss of steam burst from the sharp slats across the mouth of his mask. "It's Fisher."

"But how?" Rukia demanded, needing some kind of explanation to what shambled out of the remains of the elevator car. "That thing should be dead!" The man that had once been G. Fisher, the subject of illegal bio-modification involving Hollow genetics, and the subsequent grafting of his body to the huge Hollow-infested ore transport ship had apparently survived the nuclear blast that had taken Lirin's life. However, the means that had kept him alive were no less ghastly and abominable than the means that had Hollowfied him in the first place. Rather than the Hollowfied humans that had taken to roaming the station, or the new, more calculating Hollows they'd encountered out in space, Fisher was caught somewhere halfway in between.

Bile rose in Rukia's throat as she watched Fisher push up off the ground, rearing up on thick, tree-trunk legs that bent and hinged in wrong places. Huge and disgusting, his body had become an amalgam of scavenged steel from the ore ship and scavenged human body parts from the crew, all grotesquely regrown and bolted together into the abomination before her. The horrid thing rolled its massive head around, the wedge shape the only thing reminiscent of the Hollows she'd seen, before it pointed its gaze at them. The plating across its jaw, taken from the prow of the ore transport ship, retracted as it open its mouth with the sound of servos and creaking bones.

"WHAT," thundered in their heads as a roar, unearthly and filled with suffering and agony, rolled over them.

Rukia clutched at the huge fingers of the mech-loader's hand, desperate to keep from falling as she buckled under the strain of such an auditory assault. There were screams around her, the civilians, terrified of the massive monstrosity, and shouts in her ear from Renji and Toshiro, but when she was able to blink away the pain-induced tears on her lashes all she could see was the giant form of Fisher, rising high above her, arms outstretched as it lunged for them and all dozen of its eyes staring hungrily at her.

She didn't scream, she was certain this time. Rukia drew her weapon from the harness at her back, whipped in front of her, and began squeezing off rounds. Each blast from the muzzle of her gun, the recoil thudding up her arms and across her body, was an affirmation that what had happened on that comm relay station would not happen again. Not here. Not anywhere. More gun fire erupted from behind her, off to the side the others had opened fire as well. From her impromptu shooter's stance atop the mech-loader's hand, she halted her fire long enough to watch Fisher pause, as if confused by the comparatively tiny stings and bites their combined gunfire had inflicted. She watched Fisher pause long enough for Ichigo's enormous left hook to catch him right across the jaw.

"Hang onto something!" Ichigo yelled from the pilot's bay of the mech-loader, fighting the controls to pull his arm back. This thing is made to move cargo containers around, he fumed internally, not go toe-to-toe with giant alien monsters. Fisher recovered more quickly than he could, and only managed to get the huge elbow of the mech-loader's arm up under Fisher's jaw as he came snapping and tearing at the pilot's bay. The sound of squealing metal and heavy impact filled the railyard as the two huge figures struggled against each other.

"What are you doing!?" Rukia shouted in response.

"What's look like I'm doing?!" Ichigo grunted as he strained, pushing as hard as he could as Fisher bore all his considerable weight against the mech-loader, the servo controls sympathetically bearing against his arm. He was doing his best to keep the hand holding Rukia still as Fisher began to gnash and claw, stripping away pieces of the mech-loader's arm. More steam hissed from the slats across his mouth as he focused on Fisher, locking his legs in the bay and pushing back, re-taking the ground he'd lost. With a heave, he shook off Fisher who'd overbalanced, knocking him back towards the Impelator car and earning a few seconds of reprieve.

"Drop the car!" Rukia shouted suddenly, seized by the idea.

"What?!" Ichigo replied, eyeing Fisher as the massive abomination righted itself, turning a wary stare at Ichigo in return.

"The brakes on the car!" Rukia exclaimed, pointing up. When Fisher had torn through the roof of the Impelator car, he'd destroyed the internal housing, leaving the surrounding shaft exposed.

Ichigo looked up to what she'd been pointing at, seeing the enormous caliper brakes clamped tightly shut on the rails. He looked back at Fisher, a plan formulating in his mind, only to see the massive form of the Hollow monstrosity lunge at him with shocking swiftness. "Brace!" he yelled, a moment before impact.

Fisher had collided with them, sending the heavy mech-loader swinging precariously on its armature. Rukia was nearly thrown from her seat in the huge metal hand, managing to hang on even as her legs went swinging out from under her. Dangling from the tip of one of the fingers by one hand, her weapon clutched tightly in the other, she had an unimpeded view as the bio-mechanical horror opened its mouth impossibly wide, jagged metal and bone teeth snapping into position, before it bit down on the mech-loader's midsection. He'd missed the exposed pilot's bay by less than a meter.

"Y'know..." Ichigo managed to say as he raised his free hand up towards the ceiling of the railyard, just brushing the skywalks. "You've..." he dropped the mech-loader's fist hard into Fisher's back. "Gotten..." he swung again, "Uglier..." and again, "Since last time." Ichigo managed to daze Fisher with the last swing, and pried his jaws off the mech-loader's armature juncture. The entire loader frame jerked suddenly, Fisher's attack had severed power connections to several supporting systems. Ichigo needed to finish this in a hurry. "And this," he said, his mech-loader's hand snapping out and closing tightly around part of Fisher's face, the piece that had once been the prow of the ore ship. Across it, the name of the ship was still stenciled. "Doesn't belong to you," he said blackly, right before he pulled it off.

Rukia, still hanging from one hand, turned a little green at the sight of Ichigo tearing off part of Fisher's face, the sound of it like wet popping. Stringy webs of connective tissue were pulled tight and snapped, blood, ichor and oil spurting from the grievous injury. She watched Fisher howl in pain and rage, his ravaged face a mass of torn flesh and sparking machinery, his jaw left hanging awkwardly as he reeled back. Ichigo's hand moved suddenly and she gasped, clenching her fingers on the handhold she'd managed to find. "Careful idiot!"

"Hey Rukia," he said, keeping his eyes on Fisher. "I'm gonna need both hands for this." His other hand flexed, the mech-loader getting a better purchase on the huge length of curved ship prow.

"What?" she asked. She paused a beat, thinking through what he intended. "No, no way! Don't you dare!"

"Yo, Renji."

"Ichigo, I swear..." Rukia continued.

"Yeah, what is it?"

Ichigo looked over to the young pirate, standing shoulder to shoulder with the two detectives and a group of huddled, but rescued, civilians. "Catch." He gently flicked his wrist and the mech-loader did as well, sending Rukia sailing through the air.

The feeling of falling under gravity is not like the feeling of weightless, though they share some attributes. Weightlessness, Rukia decided, had a certainty to it, a grace somewhere in the basic physics of it. Falling, on the other hand, was uncoordinated, chaotic and uncontrolled. Rukia hated feeling out of control. She sailed through the air, her gaze never leaving and never forgiving Ichigo, even as she crashed into the group of people on the grav-sled. Jarring her back and head inside her helmet, she star bright flashing colors before her eyes from the impact and could hear groans and curses over the rushing blood in her ears. "Damn... him..." she grunted, pained. Her vision cleared enough to realize she'd laid out several civilians and Renji, who, she noted, had actually done his best to catch her. She looked down beneath her, seeing his face behind the glassite of his mismatched softsuit and offered him a rare smile in thanks.

"You okay?" he asked, stage wheezing dramatically.

"I'm going to kill him," she replied brightly. She turned to face Ichigo, standing in the pilot's bay of the mech-loader. He'd made sure she landed safely, but considering the circumstances 'safe' was relative. He spun away from her, facing the rising form of Fisher again, the huge piece of spaceship prow held in his hands. The light in the railyard flickered, somewhere the emergency generators or backup batteries were dying, and the damaged word across the prow gleamed in the dimness. 'Vizard' it read. The ghost of the sensation of Lirin, cohabiting her neural link, shivered up her spine as she remembered the young A.I.

"Kick his ass," she whispered.

Maddened with pain and rage, Fisher came barreling at Ichigo again, all brute force and tactless focus. A shift of his shoulders had the ship prow angled up to meet the rush, Ichigo careful of the speed and agility Fisher had displayed before. At the last moment, Fisher did pivot to the side with more guile than Ichigo had presumed, but he was still ready for him, shifting the makeshift weapon and driving the point in a hard thrust. Fisher's momentum carried it forward and the edge dug hard into where one of his upper arms was attached, sending a spray into the air behind him.

Ichigo had scored a solid hit, but realized his mistake immediately after. The prow was wedged hard into Fisher's body and he was unable to tug it free. Meanwhile, Fisher had screamed in pain, paused, and then shook his massive, articulated jowls with a quiver of muscle and grinding of gears. His numerous red eyes blinked at Ichigo, left exposed in the pilot's bay, and reached back with one huge, clawed hand.

Two cargo containers swung up from either side of Fisher's hand and caught it between them, crashing together like enormous cymbals. The sound was deafening, and the containers fell to the cargo yard with a thunderous cacophony.

"WHAT."

Fisher howled again in agony, and Ichigo watched dumbfounded as the giant beast recoiled, cradling its destroyed limb as it spun on this newest attacker. The curved length of prow went crashing to the ground, and he scooped it up as he turned as well, craning to see just what had happened.

"You looked like you could use an assist, Kurosaki." Uryu, sitting calmly in the pilot's bay of the other huge mech-loader, came about to face off against Fisher.

Ichigo chuckled, his own mech-loader beginning to falter, and together they moved closer to the Impelator car, cutting off Fisher's way out. "I had this under control," Ichigo argued, knowing full well that the young vigilante, or anyone, hardly believed him.

"Your delusions of martial prowess are not confidence inspiring," Uryu replied. Fisher had backed up to the Impelator car, snarling and lunging at them but remaining out of range. "Miss White said something about the brakes?"

"Blow the brakes on the car, drop the sucker down the shaft," Ichigo said.

"Wouldn't that be exceedingly dangerous, not only to anyone on the docking rings, but the structure of the station itself?"

"Yeah."

Uryu stopped at that, giving him a dark look across the gulf between their mech-loaders. "At least you've thought this through," he muttered.

By that time Fisher had had enough of being penned in like a savage animal, and lashed out at the both of them in desperation. Ichigo blocked the first swipe of his claws with the ship prow, the screech of metal on metal filling the air, while Uryu dropped two heavy fists on Fisher's back. Roaring in defiance, Fisher wrapped what was left of his arms around Ichigo's mech-loader and began wrenching it back and forth, trying to tear it from the industrial armature. The whir of overheating actuators and motors rang out alongside the wet gnashing, Ichigo doing what he could to hold Fisher in place.

"Get the brakes, now!" he yelled.

Uryu wasted no time in pivoting the huge mech-loader the remaining distance and leaning inside the Impelator car housing. The car was wrecked, barely more than a solid floor anchored to the brake struts up each wall. "Got it!" Uryu called back, reaching up and prying off the calipers like tissue paper. The car shifted, the torn debris comprising the remains of the car's housing clattering and sliding as it shifted several degrees. Uryu look to the other side, seeing the brakes, and stretched as far as the mech-loader was capable. He was still short by a handful of meters. "I can't reach the other one!"

"Then come here and help me with this!" Ichigo's mech-loader had nearly been yanked from the armature, the entire midsection and stripped and coated with a mix of Fisher's blood and hydraulic fluids. Umbilicals had snapped and dangled below while smoke was beginning to pour from beneath the manifolds at the top. As much as it may have pained him to admit, he was relieved when Uryu pivoted back around and grasped Fisher from the back, his huge metal fingers digging into each side of Fisher's huge head.

"Get him into the Imp," Ichigo grunted. The mech-loader was not operating as well as he would've liked, but he overrode the thermal shutdown safety and shunted main armature control to the stabilizing braces. The ride was suddenly a lot more jarring, but he'd gained enough power to help push Fisher's writhing, furious body towards the cargo bay doors.

A few more well placed punches from the mech-loader had weakened Fisher, but the claws at the ends of his arms and legs left long furrows in the railyard, tearing up grav-track like soft mud. Heaving, the two of them managed to hurl Fisher the last few meters, leaving him sprawled out among the broken pile of elevator remains that littered the Impelator car's floor.

"Get the brake, hurry!" Uryu yelled, moving to block Fisher from escaping through the cargo doors.

Ichigo leaned in just as Uryu had, but the strain on the armature had become too much. A grinding pop echoed through the cargo transfer point as the main joint snapped neatly in two, sending the huge mech-loader to the ground, laid out halfway through the cargo doors and pinning Fisher to the floor.

Yells and screams burst through his head, his comm filled with the concerned voices from his companions. One in particular cut through the rest, a high and thready call of his name. His main power conduit hadn't been broken though, and Ichigo planted one heavy hand on the floor of the Impelator car, leveraging himself up to reach the last brake. He was barely a meter away from closing his fingers around it when he fell heavily to the ground again. Shocked, he looked over to see Fisher at his side, still pinned but now mercilessly grinding away on mech-loader's arm, having been in range to bite it, tearing it off at the elbow. _Fuck._ The Impelator car shifted again beneath the weight of both Fisher and the top half of the mech-loader, falling to angle a few more degrees.

"Hold on Ichigo!" Uryu called out, reaching out to grab what remained of the armature's support structure.

"Get back!" Ichigo yelled. With only one brake the car was going to tip and fall, their only chance of getting rid of Fisher now was to let it.

Ignoring him, Uryu sank his fingers around Ichigo's mech-loader and began pulling him out of the cargo doorway, dragging the huge machine across the floor and down the ramp.

"I said no!" Ichigo roared, his voice crackling with an oily blackness over the comm. He dug the mech-loader's fingers into the debris but could find nothing to hold onto. Uryu pulled him up off of Fisher, who rolled back to his feet amid all the destruction and turned twelve glowering eyes at them.

"Don't be crazy, Kurosaki!" Uryu shouted, doing his best to haul the young man out of there. There was a sudden tugging jerk on the support structure of the mech-loader, far more than Uryu knew it had the power for, and looked up to see Fisher, his arm restored, pull the loader back into the car. His claws had sunk deeply into the frame of the loader, the pilot's bay mercifully unscathed. A tug-of-war over Ichigo's mech-loader ensued, one that Uryu was swiftly losing.

"The... brake..." Ichigo ground out, reaching vainly with his one remaining hand, but it remained a dozen meters out of reach. In the shifting shadows of the Impelator car shaft, amid all the noise and jarring motion of the mech-loader, a calm descended over him like a soft, noiseless blanket. Out of the darkness above, skittering like gravity held no sway over it, a shape slipped into the corners of the support strut, perched over the remaining caliper brake and stared down at him. It turned eyes, eyes that shone with a desperate fear, at a rising Fisher before turning back to him. They glowed, like all Hollow eyes had, but these were a soft, pale green. It motioned towards the brakes, as if asking permission.

Ichigo nodded. The figure immediately hunched over the brake assembly and bright yellow-white sparks began arcing out from it, cutting through the first of three bolts.

The Impelator car shifted again, leaning precariously at a sharp angle inside the elevator shaft. Fisher, realizing this, made a sudden dash for the cargo doors but was stopped short when Ichigo gripped him around the leg and Uryu blocked him from the front. Fisher, hissing and snarling, opened his mouth as if to roar again.

Instead of sound, three cruelly tipped tentacles burst from Fisher's mouth, their chainsaw edges whipping as they sliced through Uryu's mech-loader armature before cinching around the massive frame. Uryu caught eyes with Ichigo below, a shocked look of 'how could I be so stupid?' stamped on the vigilante's face, right before he was pulled bodily towards Fisher's waiting maw. The mech-loader tumbled to a halt beside Ichigo's, the added weight tipping the floor of the Impelator car even more. With no way to stop Fisher from simply walking over them, they came to a grim realization.

Rukia, standing on the grav-sled, watched Ichigo lift his head to stare down the length of the mech-loader and past Uryu, catching her eyes. She could see it, in the tilt of his head, the lines of his shoulders, an unspoken line of communication between them. She knew he could see it too, in her clenched fingers, the jut of her chin, and the barely concealed step she took towards him. "No," fell from her lips. 'I'm sorry,' was all she could read from him.

A burst of white light flashed from up in the elevator shaft, and with the snapping bang of overstressed metal, the Impelator's brakes finally failed. A second they floated there, released to the grip of the station's rotation-fueled gravity, and Ichigo remained locked in Rukia's gaze as the second passed. Silently, the car, Fisher, Uryu and Ichigo dropped away into darkness.

* * *

A dull reddish glare was shining in his eyes. With a groan, Ichigo opened his eyes experimentally, squinting at the swimming colors and shapes in front of him and wondering idly what it was that was shining so brightly. After a few moments of hazy introspection involving lights that swam in and out of focus, he ultimately decided that this was a poor use of his time, and shut his eyes. Grunting in frustration he found the reddish glare remained, demanding more of his attention.

Forcing himself to step away from the welcoming abyss of unconsciousness in order to deal with these irksome dancing red lights, he realized he couldn't move anything beyond his eyelids.

Static crackled in his ear, sudden and splitting. "-chigo?"

Inexplicable paralysis coupled with a healthy surge of adrenalin did wonders for bringing reality into focus, he found. "Rukia?" His mouth was cottony and wet, a copper scent filling his helmet, and he valiantly fought the urge to spit. He held onto the vision of her falling away and remembered the look on her face through the glassite of her faceplate. Shock, anger, denial, and then something else… hurt maybe, or desperation, flickered across her face as the memory replayed in his mind. She was safe though, she'd been caught by Renji, she should be fine, he'd seen her as the brakes on the impelator had finally given out, dropping him down into darkness.

At least she was still alright.

"Ichigo? Are you alright?"

That wasn't Rukia's voice, it occurred to him, and therefore he felt secure in ignoring it. The rotating hazy reddish glare resolved into the pinpoint indicator light on the inside of his helmet that meant something. Something significant. Filing it away for further review later, Ichigo decided to return, with no small degree of trepidation, to the issue of his paralysis. His eyes flicked around, taking in the limited view he could inside the red glare-lit dimness of the interior of his helmet, so he figured he at least had that in the plus column. He flexed his hands and felt the creases of his gloves against his palms. That was also good. The fact he couldn't move his arms was less so, but there was something about the red light and this sense of immobility that felt connected somehow. Clarity rushed upon him with a gut-wrenching severity and suddenly, everything _hurt_.

Through the bone-deep, full body ache that had gripped him, he realized the red light was the flightsuit's pressure suppression, restraint system. If Rukia had been here, she'd no doubt have called him a moron, and then she would've asked if he was alright, and then would've told him to shake it off, ya big baby. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered to imaginary-Rukia, and became unsettled when he heard the ghost of a chuckle echo up from the far corners of his mind. With more effort than he felt should have been strictly necessary, he called up the mental command to release the joints and bands around his body, send it through his link and his flightsuit relaxed back to normal, his body sagging heavily into whatever it was that was still holding him up.

"Oh good, you are alive."

The irksome red light was gone from his helmet, replaced by another irksome presence. Ichigo mentally flicked the filters off his eyeports and blinked as the light came washing through. He found himself half-hanging in an activated safety webbing, staring out the cracked glassite of the mech-loader pilot bay. He turned his head, the seat's restraints making it difficult, and found Uryu peering through the canopy, right at him. "Uryu," he croaked into his comm, "What happened?"

"Well, we're not dead," came the reply as the young vigilante unclasped the bay canopy and hauled it open, "Which is good because I would hate to think the afterlife consists of you and hanging out and asking ridiculous questions to one another."

Ichigo scoffed which quickly devolved into a groan as his ribs twinged in pain. "Hah, you and me, hanging out in the afterlife," he deadpanned, "Like that would happen."

Uryu almost sniffed in response. Almost. Instead, he seemed to think better of it and reached, with some difficulty, to the control on the panel that deactivated the restraints. The webbing across Ichigo's body relaxed at once, and he managed to unclick the harnesses and buckles himself, finally clambering out of the tilted mech-loader and stumbling onto the cratered pavement below.

"How much do you remember before our trip to the bottom of the Imp?" Uryu asked into the silence, staring at the mech-loader. Something caught his eye and he reached inside, tugging out the bulky black bag he'd had Ichigo hold for him. He didn't say anything, he knew Ichigo would just scoff, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Ichigo heaved himself to his feet, taking in their surroundings. What was left of the Impelator car and transfer housing lay a few dozen meters behind them. The whole of it had been blown apart, as if a bomb had hit it, metal and plastisteel paneling was folded outwards like a banana peel. Inside it, what had once been the massive two-story car was barely recognizable, the only things discernible being the destroyed remains of several hovercar lockplates and a few lines of twisted grav-lev rail among the smoking, twisted wreckage. Tossed in every direction were other hovercars, some still secured to their lockplates, strewn about the transit lane pavement they stood upon. Some, he noted with a twist in his stomach, had landed upside down, the car crushed under the weight of the durocrete and metal of the plate. He turned away from the debris strewn about them to reply to Uryu, "Bits and pieces." Shifting to scan past the young man for the one thing he didn't recognize among the debris, he continued, "We should get out of here." He didn't see Fisher's remains anywhere.

Uryu nodded in agreement, coming to the same realization. "We've fallen down the station's support pylon, onto a docking ring of questionable structural integrity, are probably surrounded by someone's twisted science experiment in Hollow-genetics, and have no easy way back to the other members of the team," he said, cataloging their situation as he came around the remains of the mech-loader.

"Oh, we're a team now?"

"We're also light on weapons, are out of comm range, and have no form of transportation," Uryu continued, pursing his lips at Ichigo's glib remarks. "And I still don't know how we managed to survive at all," he finished, somewhat exasperated.

Ichigo began walking off the transit lane, heading for the embankment that separated the pedestrian level from the pylon anchor point. "We lived, don't dwell on it." Every moment they wasted was another moment they weren't using to get back to the others.

"The last thing I remember was that Hollow monstrosity pulling the mech-loaders into the shaft as the lock-pins gave way, then just a lot of flashing lights and the feeling of falling. Then I woke up in the seat of the loader I'd been using, strapped into the crash webbing." Uryu turned a suspicious eye on him as he came up beside the low embankment wall. "I couldn't reach the last brake, and I know you couldn't either."

Ichigo grunted in reply, swinging he legs over the guardrail. He didn't elaborate.

Uryu managed to wait until they had slid down onto the top pedestrian level, darkened shops and businesses, little more than vague cubes in the dimness of the docking ring's interior, stretching off in either direction, until finally asking, "So how it'd happen?"

"Not how," Ichigo muttered, staring up and down the immensely long avenue, the whole of it gently sloping up out of sight with the curve of the ring. "Who." Picking a direction, he began moving along the level with a purpose.

"Ichigo, where are you going?" Uryu demanded, following him. "And what do you mean 'who'?"

"Doesn't matter who," he said with a wave of his hand. "You've said it yourself, we need to get back to the others, and they're on the habitat," he replied, pointing upwards. "The only way back is up another pylon, since there's no way we'll be getting back up that one. We don't have a car and the tram sure as shit isn't running, so we walk to the next one." Ichigo felt eyes on his back and stopped walking across the vacant, eerily dim causeway that fronted the commercial district, turning to face Uryu. He found the young man looking decidedly out of his element.

"The habitat…" Uryu muttered, staring upwards.

He must've looked up when he pointed, Ichigo realized. "Yeah, looks weird from down here." Ichigo glanced up despite knowing better, his eyes drawn just like Uryu's had, to the Sunroof. "It's the single biggest viewport in the system," Ichigo felt compelled to explain as he took in the view. Ichigo reasoned that since Uryu had probably lived most his life on stations and ships in the Outer Orbits, he'd have to be accustomed to the vaguely sunlight-esque centerline illumination system the habitat employed, which meant he'd never seen something like the Sunroofs on the rings. Down the center of the ring's inside edge, the ceiling of pedestrian level, a wide strip of the superstructure from the interior to the exterior hull was nothing more than high density sheet-crystallite. Sunslight reflected off the exterior hull of the main habitat and shined down through the Sunroofs as the station rotated, sending slanting beams of bronze throughout half the ring at a time, the other half lit by the glow of the stars and the occasional flash of engine wash. "Anyway," Ichigo muttered dismissively inside his helmet, "We're not here to sight-see."

Uryu fell into step beside him but Ichigo noticed his eyes straying upwards every once in a while as they walked silently down the avenue, a sour look settling onto his face. He wasn't really surprised, the parallels between the habitat and the Inner Orbits, and the rings and the Outer Orbits was pretty obvious. The rings might be where the tugs and barges docked, hauling in metric tons of materials from the belt, but that money invariably ended up centrally, in the habitat. Outer Orbits' gas miners and ice haulers from the belts were in the same situation. Sure the central four-and-six controlled paid them, but just a pittance. Seeing the habitat perpetually hanging over head, like it was forever crushing you down as far as possible, chaffed a lot of people over time.

"I don't think I like your station very much, Kurosaki," Uryu muttered. He was looking at the commercial sectors now, off to the sides of the docking plates and transit lane, crammed in as tightly as possible between the arching ribs of superstructure. They fronted the pedestrian levels and spilled out into the promenades, squeezing the inner sidewalks until they were barely more than labyrinthine corridors that wove through the businesses and minor fab-labs. Down the steps to the major ship docking airlocks and embarkation decks, to where the Masaki must be still moored somewhere, it was even more crowded off the major thoroughfares, all arced overhead with criss-crossing skywalks and gantries. "There's just no… space."

Ichigo smiled at his choice of words but said nothing. The Free Spacers design aesthetic was always bigger, wider and more spacious than he thought was strictly necessary. Working as medical support around the Rim, coming aboard their ships was often more comfortable, especially after being cloistered inside his father's ship after months, but there were others across the system that were convinced that much superfluous space was almost obscene. "It's always 'them and us,'" Ichigo whispered to himself, but waved it away when Uryu pressed him to repeat it. The smile slipped away when he thought again of the _Masaki_. "Come on, hurry."

The two of them broke into a brisk jog down the top level pedestrian deck, the major transit lane up above on one side and the dark, gloomy shops on the other. As far as they could see they were the only things moving on the entire ring. With the ground curving ever upwards at the limits of their vision, all was eerie starlight and hushed stillness. Ichigo, however, knew something was wrong. Knew it, but couldn't see it. His neck was starting to ache as he constantly shifted his head, craning around the corners of buildings and shops as he checked for movement and in a way he was relieved, his boots crunching on broken glassite that sparkled like so many stars, when he finally spotted a single Hollowfied lurching from between two structures, barely more than a silhouette against the darkened backdrop of the station.

"Hot contact," Uryu called through the comm, spying the Hollowfied and reaching for his weapon. He was stopped from drawing when Ichigo's hand landed on his shoulder.

"Shut up a minute," Ichigo unnecessarily whispered, ducking into the corner of a support rib and tugging Uryu behind. "They haven't seen us yet."

"They? I only saw one," Uryu remarked. Ichigo tilted his helmet at him but said nothing. "But I see your point," the vigilante amended. Together they leaned barely far enough to see around the edge of the ring's support strut and watched in silence as the figure took one shuffling step after another, mindlessly wandering across the pedestrian level.

Watching it, the figure's mouth hanging open as it wheezed rattling breaths that coiled into mist in the thin, chilly air, Ichigo studied it, trying to find some way to understand it. Activating the recorder in his link and feeding it the datastream from his ocular implant, he began filing away the footage as the seconds ticked by. When another shadow moved in the distance, detaching itself from the deeper darkness of the abandoned commercial sectors, he still had the video feed running when the Hollowfied creature noticed and turned towards it.

"Uh, Kurosaki?" Uryu spoke up, "Do you see that other one?"

"Yeah, I see it."

"It's not shuffling, it's walking."

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed. His first impulse was the wild inclination to rush the creature, scooping up something to use as a weapon on the way to give the further figure a chance to see what they were blindly walking into. He was half out of the cover of the support strut when something still seemed wrong with the situation. It occurred to him about the same time a vibration rolled beneath the paneling beneath his feet. He knew it wasn't the jarring shudder of impact, rather it felt more like the rolling tremble of heavy feet, marching in sequence somewhere below them. Strange, then, how the Hollowfied creature out on the deck also seemed to take note of it. And seemed afraid.

The other figure, the one walking calmly towards the Hollowfied, was not afraid.

Focusing his ocular video feed as best he could, he zoomed in the frame and did his best to steady his eye. A grainy, dark and jumpy video was the best he was going to get. The walking figure had stopped a few meters from the Hollowfied creature, standing straight but relaxed and apparently speaking if the mist curling from their mouth was any indication.

"Are your mics picking up anything?" Uryu muttered.

Ichigo shook his head and then stopped, realizing it would jostle the video feed. Instead he just watched, perplexed and silent, as the Hollowfied creature began to slink away from the other. It turned in their direction and began to walk with a slow but purposeful shambling gait, what was left of its arms and fingers drawn up and curled as if stricken by rigor mortis. "I think we've been made."

Uryu had half-drawn his weapon again when two dozen more figures came stumbling through the darkness all across the gloomy pedestrian level. Lurching from side alleys and crawling from broken windows, the avenue went from desolately empty to teeming with movement in a matter of moments, the darkness moving and shifting with the creatures scuttling within it.

"They're not coming this way," Ichigo realized. On the transit lane back in the habitat all the Hollowfied figures had come unerringly at them directly, moving as one. These however, were all scattering, scrambling away from the lone figure standing openly in the middle of the wide deck.

"Just like before, in the cargo transfer yard," Uryu said. "They're running."

There was only one thing he could think of that would send these ravenous Hollowfied monsters running. "We need to get off this level," he said. No sooner had the words left his mouth than a deafening bang split the thin air, the second-tier access stairway tearing itself apart not five meters away from them as something huge rose from the pit below. A flash from the sodium lights and holo-tisements lining the deck, the power flickering and surging through the ring, threw sickly yellow and harsh blue light across the pedestrian level as the massive form moved with an alien grace across the pedestrian level, disappearing among structures and ribbing of the pedestrian level just as soon as it'd appeared. Ichigo and Uryu both bolted back behind the pillar, recoiling from the afterimage of glistening, mottled flesh and dull, blood-rusted metal that had been burned into the backs of their eyes. The support strut beneath his gloved hands was cool and Ichigo braced himself against it, heart racing as he fought to control his breathing.

"Was that...? It can't..." Uryu panted. He could hear the creases squeaking from his gloves as he tightened his grip on his weapon.

Ichigo swallowed, the notion almost too horrible to think, but forced himself to say the words anyway. "Fisher," he whispered, "What's left of him anyway." Uryu appeared to be preparing himself to take another peek around the corner, so Ichigo leaned out first. What had blocked the avenue was gone again, leaving only the figure standing alone in the middle of the deck, his hands clasped behind his back. The Hollowfied creature was gone as well, the others like it further still crawling and scrambling to newer hiding spaces, slipping off into darker recesses with greater urgency, their haste robbing them of what little coordination they still possessed.

"This whole level is crawling with those things," Uryu noted, "Plus Fisher now."

Ichigo could see one of the main staircases leading from the lane deck they were on down to the commercial and docking deck below, jerked his head at it, and then followed Uryu as they too slipped into the cover of darkness.

"There's no guarantee the lower docking deck will be any different, Kurosaki."

"Fisher is up here on the lane deck, we're not equipped to deal with him." Ichigo began heading down the steps, the lights along the second pedestrian level a little more reliable, shining in pools of yellow at odd intervals across the wide deck. "Yet."

* * *

"We're getting near the Naval cargo receiving," Rukia explained, her voice projecting through her suit's speakers. The civilians, huddled together in the center of the cargo car's platform, nodded back at her. The car cruising along through the tunnel had left them all looking a little wind-swept and they'd given up trying to shout over the sound of rushing air a while ago. She turned away from them, fixing her view straight ahead down the tunnel, the rhythmic flash of lights overhead strobing across the cargo car flashing over all of them, each flash taking her further and further away from where he'd fallen. She did not look back to where he'd been, or give voice to her concerns where he was now. Instead she put her faith in Ichigo's stubborn unwillingness to succumb to the odds stacked against them. She'd see him again, she believed it, all she had to do was keep moving forward.

Her hand slipped to her back to touch the grip of the weapon seated in the harness and took what reassurance she could from it. She was the tac officer, and she wouldn't lose her pilot again.

* * *

Below the lane deck, separated by several standard stories and down the widest part of the docking ring, was the embarkation deck. A far cry from the laser-straight lane above that circumnavigated the ring, the foot traffic down on the second level pathways that comprised it were intentionally non-linear. Avenues meandered around and minor skywalks connected nearby buildings, all of which had been placed to break long sightlines. The desired effect had been designed to give off a comfortable, familiar environment to station residents and planetsiders who'd come aboard. All it was doing now, however, was angering Ichigo as the two of them made their way, interminably slowly, across the ring to the next support pylon.

"See anything?"

"No." He did his best to keep the irritation out of his voice. He'd probably been asked a half dozen times, as Ichigo's eye port sensors had better resolution than Uryu's glasses, so he'd been the one forced to keep scanning the area. They were making their way, insufferably slowly he felt, along the lower docking level. Without the Sunroof overhead they were forced to rely on whatever light was filtering down from the upper levels and the few, dim emergency lights that were still operating. Everything had a wet, slimy sheen to it with what light there was, and neither of them wanted to investigate what it might have caused it too closely.

"We should have seen something by now," Uryu muttered.

Ichigo said nothing. He'd rather that they continue this trend of heading across the empty ring deck, passing docking berths in regular intervals. If they kept this pace they might be able to catch up to Rukia and the others in time.

The two of them continued onward, letting their conversation lapse into silence as they walked through the wide, dark and empty docking ring level. Up ahead, Ichigo noticed the area they were approaching and slowed to a stop, slipping behind the cover of a support pillar.

"This is going to be a problem," Ichigo muttered as Uryu joined him. He leaned out and looked down the length of the lower level at the main commerce and entertainment sector of the docking ring. It was overbuilt with shops and restaurants all crowded together, squeezed into the little space not reserved for docking gate terminals.

"We have little choice," Uryu said, the light of his glasses glinting off the clear glassite of his faceplate. "It seems clear, let's keep moving." They'd been moving this way for several hundred meters, picking their way through the meandering pedestrian lanes and across the few elevated skywalks, slipping around the darkened, empty faces of stores while avoiding the more open areas.

He had let himself become consumed with the act of getting across the deck, he and Uryu moving quickly through the dark and empty spaces that he'd always known to be well lit and teeming with people. Instead of listening to music or sys-linking a text comm channel with his friends, he was running logistics and TA, surrounding himself with tactical information. They had begun their trek with extreme caution, taking utmost care to avoid possible detection, but as the minutes and meters went by without sign of pursuit they had begun to favor speed over stealth. Cresting a staircase up to the lip of a skywalk that traversed the majority of the deck, they avoided the darker, winding footpaths through the kiosks and stalls below, but something Ichigo noticed forced him to a halt, knocking his focus from their task. His surroundings went from from battlezone to recognizable in an instant.

"I've seen this before," he said, mostly to himself, slowing.

"I should hope so, you live here," Uryu replied, not bothering to slow down. He was several meters ahead before he realized Ichigo had stopped completely.

"No," Ichigo breathed, turning his masked face out to the expanse below him, his gloved hands gripping the guardrail. The station had continued rotating, and now the starlight filtering down from the transit lane level above, bouncing off the polished metal and glassite, the durocrete and composites, had bathed the pedestrian level in a soft, pale blue glow. Motes of dust danced in the still air, slipping through the shafts of starlight like glowing wisps. Ichigo's grip tightened on the railing as he turned slightly to the right, and even knowing exactly what it was he'd find there, it was still a shock. The commercial sector with its the restaurants and shops and front offices that lined the docking ring, the kiosks and stands that littered the pedestrian walkways. The elevated embarkation deck that ran down either side of the wide docking ring, fronting the massive blastdoor airlocks of spacecraft berths. There it was, just as he'd expected and feared it would be, the simple holo-tisement over the large circular airlock still proclaiming the ship that was docked there in faltering, blinking graphics. "That's my father's ship, the _Masaki_." The last time he'd been onboard that ship had been the morning they'd left on Urahara's ship to go pick up engine parts for the _Sode no Shirayuki_ , it was supposed to have been routine and now felt like part of a different life. Different life, he reflected, realizing how apt the phrase was, and then he realized that it hadn't been the last time he'd been onboard the _Masaki_. It'd been the bizarre fever dream he'd had after being injected with his new bio-mod link.

And the light, that ethereal blue glow that had suffused the dreamscape now permeated the station. Ichigo lifted his hands from the railing, trying to distance himself as he stared down at the meandering pathways he'd wandered a week ago. The shift of a shadow stopped him short, then another, and another. Figures were emerging from the dark recesses among the commercial sector, converging on the embarkation deck and stumbling their way to the staircases. They were making their way up to the skywalks.

"This," Ichigo decided, "Is a problem."

Uryu, for once, had not refuted him. Instead, he backed up to stand beside Ichigo, calmly assessing the spread of movement that was growing around them. He tapped the controls on his knuckles and the light flickered through his glasses, cycling through what sensor feeds he had available. "I think we've got a clear shot in that direction," he said, pointing.

A flicker off to their side prompted Ichigo's TA and object tracker to engage, a pair of thin lines bracketing movement at the edge of his field of vision. "Hot contact," he said reflexively, using the same vernacular pilots used for heat-emitting objects in space. He spun, and saw a Hollowfied had managed to climb up to the skywalk level they were on.

"How many, uh," Uryu stumbled over a word to describe the creatures that had infested the station, "Hostiles?" He pulled one of his weapons from its holster but aimed it down the other side of the skywalk, his own sensors reporting movement from that direction.

Ichigo watched the figure emerge into the light, its eyes gleaming and mouth hanging open as it rattled a breath. It reached towards them and Ichigo let his eyebrows rise a fraction out of his customary scowl. From the forearm down, one of its hands had been replaced with the broken grip of a loader frame, bolted through the flesh and wrapped clumsily with exposed wiring. There was more movement behind, figures coming up the stairs behind the Hollowfied with same dead-eyed stare and vacant, hungry expression. "How many?" he echoed. "There's enough. Follow me, I have an idea."

"You? An idea..." he looked over his shoulder to find Ichigo conspicuously absent from the skywalk. "Ichigo?" He heard the heavy thunk of boots landing down below and realized Ichigo had vaulted from the skywalk, landing on a restaurant rooftop directly beneath them. Stunned, he watched the darkly armored man adroitly traverse the rooftop and pause at the lip of the roof, aiming his masked face back up at him. "That's one way to do it."

Ichigo watched the vigilante toss the bag down to the roof before leaping after him, smoothly standing and looking to him expectantly. Noises off to their side alerted him that their escape had not gone unnoticed, and peering over the edge revealed a growing throng of shadowy movement. One by one, figures emerged from the walkways between buildings, wheezing and snarling with growing vigor and volume as they spotted him there at the lip. "This problem is getting worse."

"You are a master of understatement," Uryu muttered, looking down from the roof as well. The solid sound of impact drew their attention behind, one of the Hollowfied had tumbled off the skywalk and had fallen to the roof they stood upon. Surprised, they watched it wrench itself back to its feet with a detached sort of observation. When more began hurling themselves from the skywalk, some landing on the roof and some not, they broke into a run towards the building next door.

"Jump for it," Ichigo said, planting a foot on the lip of the building and leaping across the alley below. Soaring through the air, he landed on the upper patio of an upscale restaurant, skidding to a halt before he careened into the scattered tables and chairs. Uryu was right behind him, the heavy bag he was carrying nearly knocking him from his feet. Irritated with the vigilante, Ichigo turned on him pointing at the bag. "What the hell is so important in that bag?"

"Is now really the time for this?" Uryu replied testily. More Hollowfied were emerging from the restaurant doors, making a clumsy line straight at them despite the chairs and tables in the way.

Ichigo threw up his hands in frustration before sprinting to the far side of the patio. "It's clear on this side," he grumbled.

"Yeah but for how long?" Uryu asked. The question was rhetorical and went unanswered as the two of them climbed over the edge, hanging by their fingers. Releasing the lip, they fell the minimal distance to the commercial sector level. Shadows moved over the walls to their left, moans and guttural wheezes filling the air, so they turned right and took off at a sprint.

Running pell mell through the maze of darkened alleys, his boots thunking steadily against the grimy, wet durocrete and weaving his body past tipped over recycling containers, Ichigo gave little thought to what might be considered a plan. He knew they were headed vaguely in the direction Uryu had claimed to be their best shot, but the man hadn't said what their margin for success might be. If the alerts his logistical system were putting up in his vision, and by the number of movement brackets that kept appearing, that margin was getting slimmer and slimmer. There was a constantly reseting time-to-intercept gauge at the top of his vision, marking the time that nearest identified target would reach him, and he knew that as long as he kept it increasing rather than decreasing as they sprinted on, they were outpacing their pursuers.

The alley emptied out into a courtyard of sorts, the tall columns supporting the transit lane deck above standing stark amid a ring of vacant stalls, darkened kiosks, and empty storefronts. Cries of hunger and rage began echoing all around them, the Hollowfied creeping through the gaps and surrounding them. Coming to a halt in the center, their backs to the central column. They turned, and turned, looking for a gap as the Hollowfied steadily came closer.

"We're surrounded," Uryu said, drawing his weapon.

"What was that you said about the master of understatement?"

Uryu chuckled grimly, leveling the energy weapon and firing a bolt of blue-white light into the forehead of the nearest figure. The figure dropped like a stone but more took its place. Sighing as he checked the cell levels of the weapon, the panel appearing on the surface of his glasses, he said, "I'm going to run out soon."

"I'm sure we'll think of something," Ichigo said, studying the column behind them, wondering if it held a service tube or crawlway leading back up to the transit lane deck.

"We don't have long, Kurosaki," Uryu warned, firing another volley of shots. Coming too fast for him to keep up with, darker shapes were massing further and further back of the throng of Hollowfied, the closer ones picking their way slowly over the bodies of their fallen brethren.

"How long does your weapon take to recharge?" Ichigo faced the gathering darkness, not finding any hint of an access door or ladder on the column.

"More time than we have," Uryu replied, standing at his side. "Any suggestions?" he asked.

Ichigo privately commended the young vigilante for keeping the defeat out of his voice. "Sure, we make a break for it, we just need to think of a good-" Ichigo's eyes drifted upward to track a bright line of glowing orange as it arced overhead, his voice shifting from determined to confused, "-distraction?"

A line of incandescent orange seared through the darkness, bright as a falling star, and when it crashed to the commercial deck surface at the edge of the courtyard amid the rotting, shambling figures, fire erupted in its wake. Ichigo and Uryu, too stunned by the unthinkable audacity of such an action, and were only shaken into motion by the fiery trails and subsequent swirling infernos of two more firebombs. Reeling away from the heat and light, the Hollowfied drew back, clawing to get closer but wary of the fire.

"You're station's on fire, Kurosaki," Uryu mentioned, pointing helpfully. "I mean, more than it was already."

"I'd noticed." Ichigo glanced back in the direction the arcs had come from and saw an individual detached itself from the gloom, running through the gap the fire had created, face covered by an emergency mask and waving in their direction. "Looks like there's our exit," he said. "Anywhere's better than here."

Ichigo and Uryu followed the fleet footed figure towards a sheltered alcove, hidden in the recesses of the station's support structure. Once safely ensconced, the Hollowfied scattered from the fire and lost in the confusion, Ichigo roughly took hold of their would-be savior and jerked him about, forcing him to face his own masked visage. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded over his suit speakers, steam hissing from his mask, "You just set _fire_ to the station!"

"Hey Kurosaki!" Uryu called out, "He just saved our lives!"

If the figure was concerned about being manhandled, he didn't show it. How only gave an infuriatingly careless shrug of his shoulders before flicking on a flashlight and peering up at Ichigo's face. "Kurosaki... Ichigo Kurosaki?" he asked, a familiar note to his voice.

Ichigo released him immediately, holding a hand to block the light. "Yeah?" He knew logically no one could recognize him past the mask and helmet, but he was still shocked. His eyes adjusted to the light to take in this mystery figure.

"I thought I heard that name right," he said, a smile crept into his tone but most of his face was still covered by the atmo mask.

"You have good ears," Uryu mentioned.

"In my line of work, it's a necessity." He spun a bottle around in his hand, a white rag fluttering from the top, and he looked down at it with a profound sense of mourning. He noticed Ichigo and Uryu's eyes flick to the bottle in his hand as well. "It's low tech but remarkably effective, and I had an ample supply." He pointed the flashlight to his own face and tugged the atmo mask from his mouth, giving them a friendly smile, one designed to ease and build confidence, one he'd cultivated over the years.

"Mizuiro?!" Ichigo realized.

The young bartender knocked him on the armored shoulder with a weak chuckle, replaced his mask, and nodded. "Small universe. Come on, I have the bar sealed and barricaded. It's safe there."

* * *

"Hey, look who I found running around the station," Mizuiro said, thumbing over his shoulder as they cycled through the service entrance at the back of the establishment.

The place was packed with people, far more than what should be permitted by station mandate, and several faces turned in their direction. Checking his link's readout, the air inside the bar was hovering around seventy percent of one atmosphere, thin but thankfully unpolluted, and Ichigo followed suit as Mizuiro pulled off his mask and Uryu removed his helmet. With a click and hiss, his mask unsealed and slid upward, leaving him blinking to clear his eyes from the brightness of natural light. The stink of sweat and unwashed humanity assaulted him, too many people in too-close proximity, huddling in fear and uncertainty, injured and without hope.

"I managed to get as many people safe inside as I could, once I realized what was happening out there," Mizuiro explained, walking past the bar which had become an impromptu triage area for the injured. "And I've had these two jacked into the station's security system, scanning the interior camera feeds nearby for anyone else, that's how we saw you two when you ran into trouble." He stopped at the hardwire terminal stalls near the back, nudging the two men perched on stools. They each shook off the faraway, link-focused look and glanced towards Ichigo and Uryu, shock registering on their faces when they swept away whatever panels they had hovering in their vision.

"ICHI-grmmmph!" Keigo yelled, a hand clapping solidly over his mouth by the one beside him.

"Shhh," Chad hushed. "Hey Ichigo," he rumbled in greeting.

"Oh man," Ichigo said, relief spreading a grin over his face and strode forward, clasping Chad's bionic hand companionably. "It's great to see you guys. Even you, Keigo."

"Hey..." Keigo pouted.

"What're you doing here on station?"

"The Outer Orbits were getting too crazy, the band cancelled the rest of the gigs we had and came back," Chad answered, "If we'd've known..." Chad lapsed into silence, indicating the situation that had befallen them all with a gesture of his bionic arm. "We were lucky to be here."

"I'm only doing what anyone else would," Mizuiro said, smiling self-deprecatingly.

"What about my sisters, are they here too?" Ichigo quickly asked, his head lifting to once again search the sea of faces clustered into the bar.

"No man," Mizuiro said sadly, "But your dad's ship has had the blastdoor sealed since it all started. So long as the _Masaki's_ hull is intact, they should be safe inside."

Ichigo nodded, his lips tight. They were as safe there as anywhere, and he had other people counting on him. "We're heading to the next anchor pylon," he said, indicating Uryu off his shoulder. The young vigilante shouldered the bulky bag he was carrying and gave them a cursory wave of greeting. "We need to get back up to the habitat."

Mizuiro, Keigo and Chad stared at them in mute alarm until, "Are you nuts?" Keigo exclaimed. "You might as well space yourself for all the luck you'd have getting to the next pylon."

"Keigo's right," Chad put in. "The ring's hull has been compromised past the ninth barricade. Atmosphere's down to nineteen percent there, and the superstructure is going to buckle, just a matter of time."

"Why do you need to get back to the habitat?" Mizuiro asked.

Ichigo had the sincere impression he was being studied. "There's something in the naval sector," he admitted, wondering how much information to divulge to the crafty bartender, "It's related to what's happening here."

Mizuiro looked at him again, taking in the armored flightsuit, combat pilot helmet and the various scuffs and dents he'd suffered on his way here. He did the same to Uryu, noting the heavy bag he wore over his shoulder and the weapon at his thigh. His eyebrows rose only slightly when Ichigo watched him catch sight of the object Uryu had concealed at his back, beneath the radiation cape that hung from his shoulders. "You're certain?"

"Positive."

Mizuiro seemed to make up his mind at that point, because he turned to Chad and asked, "How clear is the way to the ninth barricade?"

"You're not serious about letting him go back out there, are you?" Keigo asked.

"The man's made up his mind," Mizuiro said, glancing at his armored flightsuit again, "And it looks like he can handle himself, so how's it look out there?"

Chad breathed out with a frown on his solemn face. "Hard to say. The station's systems are all powered down," Chad said, his one visible eye narrowing as he minutely flicked a single finger through a menu in his vision. "I've been trying to get to the camera feeds from station security back, we had them for a while but something weird happened."

"I think I know what," Ichigo said, turning his head towards the rear of the bar, towards the unoccupied, darkened hardwire link bays.

* * *

The silence stretched and the young woman, sitting as still as a statue and hidden inside a tilted hovercar, fully intended to let it continue stretching as long it wanted. In the quiet and the dark, she tried not to let herself ponder the wisdom of her plan and the amount of danger that it had entailed. If she did, she knew she'd start shaking from terror, which would defeat the purpose of sitting still. To distract herself, she gave the mental command to bring up her neural link interface, a sure-fire way to kill at least a few minutes.

There wasn't an available wireless connection on the station anymore, unsurprising really, and from what she could tell, there wasn't anyone else nearby to share a local connection with, which was relatively unheard of. Her softsuit didn't even have a hardwire plate, just the barest necessities in terms of emergency oxygen supplies and radiation shielding. Still, she brought up her link anyway and six tiny figures swirled into existence, flitting about her vision before settling around her.

At least she wouldn't be lonely.

"What in the worlds were you thinking, coming down here like this?" the small black and red one asked gruffly. He zipped up to perch on the hovercar's controls, staring out into the darkness with a tiny hand shielding his tiny eyes like a sea-ship captain from the old stories. Orihime found herself trying hard not to laugh as he appeared to scan the immediate area.

"Come down from there," she whispered, reaching up to snatch him from the dash. She knew logically that they were only visible to her, being images drawn directly on the interior of her eyes just like other people's private display panels, but she couldn't help feeling the need to shelter them, protect them. Looking down at her hands, she uncurled her fingers and watched the tiny figure standing on her palm, glaring up at her. He leaned against her upturned thumb and huffed, crossing his tiny feet and arms, uncaring. While he may not have been visible to anyone else, they were all as real as anything to her, a fact reinforced by the way she could feel the weight of him through her glove, a trick of her enhanced neural link and superconductor-threaded nervous system she'd long ago figured out. She smiled a bit, thinking about what she must look like to anyone else, cradling the tiny figure in her hands. Her brows creased slightly though, realizing she must not look any stranger than what most everyone else looked like when they were busy swiping and poking their fingers in the air, apparently talking to themselves, fiddling with their own panels and displays. She chuckled weakly, careful to keep the sound low. If they'd ever taken the time to observe them, the aliens that had come to attack Karakura Station must think humans were a bunch of lunatics, all talking and gesturing to themselves.

She still couldn't quite believe what had happened, what she'd seen. Ships, too numerous to count and each one a different configuration, pouring through space and tearing apart everything in their path, like... she shuddered, a swarm. She could only imagine the frantic chaos and panic that ensued up in Traffic Control, and hoped sadly that her friends were okay.

She'd just closed her eyes to try to settle her nerves when the unmistakable sound of the hovercar's door latch release echoed through the car. A squeak of fright escaped her lips as her eyes sprang open, hands balling into fists and her body tensing.

The door opened to a narrow degree and the car resettled on its broken landing struts as a figure slipped inside. "Relax Orihime, I'm back."

"Tatsuki!" Orihime sighed with relief.

"Let me go!" came the muttered voice from her hands.

"Sorry!" Orihime replied without thinking.

Tatsuki gave her an odd look as she climbed into the darkened car, but shrugged it away after a moment. "Your link, I guess?"

Orihime nodded, opening her fright-clenched fingers and watching the black-red streak zoom away from her hands, coming to a stop a safe distance away and pushing away the concerned crowding of other glowing figures. "Did you see a way through?" Orihime asked, rising up slightly to peer through the front windshield. All she could see was the rough silhouette of a dozen different hovercars that had apparently crashed when Transit Authority went offline, leaving them in a tangled pileup and blocking off the ring's transit level. Another dozen hovercars, one of which they were now sitting in, must have come to screeching halts, sliding pell mell across the lane surface and then were left abandoned as their owners had fled, presumably, to safety.

"No, it's all blocked off." Tatsuki sighed. "I think we're going to have to go down to the pedestrian level."

Her voice was barely above a whisper, their softsuits and the thinning air muffled the sounds from outside but amplified the sounds within. Orihime looked away from Tatsuki, the stiff material at her neck creaking in her ears, and over to the tiny hovering figures resident to her advanced neural link. Tense, frightened faces stared back at her, her link's interpretation of her own emotional state. "Is that safe?"

"At this point," she sighed, "I'd say 'safe' is relative." Arms crossed, she drummed her fingers against the upper sleeve of her softsuit, staring out past the hovercar pileup and towards the real issue they were dealing with.

Orihime decided to focus on the positive, nodding to herself. Maybe if they talked about their goal, they could think of a way to achieve it. Her eyes traveled out the front viewport, following Tatsuki's line of vision, trying to pierce the cool darkness that had settled over the station. "Well," she began, "His ship is just a few sections past this, all we need to do is find a way through."

"Yep," Tatsuki replied absently.

Her auburn hair tucked up inside the helmet of her softsuit, Orihime nodded tentatively, the stiff neck of the suit creaking in the silence, and poked a finger in the direction of the pileup of other hovercars. "And I'm sure the _Masaki_ is fine, it had its blastdoors sealed last I checked." She folded her hands in her lap. "It's the safest place I can think of to go."

The quiet admition must have broken Tatsuki's concentration because she turned to regard her best friend. "I pretty much assumed that," she said gently, knowing Orihime's still-tender feelings about this. She smiled, trying to disarm Orihime's sudden shift in mood, saying, "And since I couldn't get you into a sanctuary pod or escape craft, the least I could do was come along."

Orihime offered her friend a watery smile but a sudden light from the hovercar's console system distracted her. "Did you turn the car on?"

"No," Tatuski said, unsure, "But I think that's the comm system?" Bolting upright, she quickly looked up out the viewports for anything that might have noticed the sudden light. "Quick, turn it off!"

"How?!" Orihime put her gloved hands against the console, trying to block the light that still seeped from around her fingers.

"I dunno!" Tatsuki exclaimed, "It's not even supposed to be on!" The glow from the panel suddenly dimmed down to near darkness, still lit but barely perceptible. "What'd you do?"

"Nothing..." Orihime said, perplexed as well, shifting her hands to get a better view of the comm panel on the car's dash. "Hey, it's blinking a channel," she said, "Like it's getting a signal."

"No way," Tatsuki alleged, "The station is busted, everything's off." Orihime pointed at the panel and shrugged, so when Tatsuki leaned over, sure enough, the comm in the hovercar was getting a signal. "Weird, probably just static. Don't turn it on, the noise'll be worse than the light."

Orihime's thin brows narrowed in consternation behind the glassite faceplate of her helmet. "Aren't you curious about what it might be?"

"No Orihime," Tatsuki said patiently, turning her attention away from the car, "I'm less concerned with the weirdnesses of a busted up hovercar than I am keeping us away from those freaks back in the habitat."

Undaunted, Orihime shrugged and replied, "Okay, I'll check it out then."

"What?!"

Instead of answering, Orihime turned up her left wrist and studied the sealing mechanism. Seeing it was relatively straightforward, she dug the fingers of her other hand into the catch-release and prepared to pull the latch.

"Orihime, what are you doing?" Tatsuki asked harshly, growing alarmed.

A streak of gold spiraled up her arm as the tiny figure of Shun'o alighted on her shoulder. "Taking my glove off." She pulled the release and heard the bursting hiss of escaping air followed almost instantly by the ratcheting zip of the pressure cuff as it cinched down hard on her upper arm, digging painfully into her skin as it tried to maintain an airtight seal in the rest of the suit.

"Ta-taking your glove off?! Why?"

"Because it doesn't have a hardwire link connector built in, silly," Orihime said, wincing slightly as she worked her glove off her suddenly chilly, tingly hand while trying to hold her arm still, lest the pressure cuff cinch any tighter.

Shun'o studied Orihime's bare hand, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Based on the pressure differential I'm deriving between your suit and your hand, the atmosphere's probably twenty percent of nominal." She turned to face Orihime, looking slightly troubled. "Your hand is suffering from ebullism already, the longer you expose yourself the worse it's going to get."

"Good to know," Orihime said quietly, frowning a bit as he hand began to swell.

"What the hell Orihime?!" Tatsuki managed to keep her voice low but it was a close thing, her teeth clenched tight together as she stared at her friend.

"It's okay, Tatsuki," Orihime replied, trying more to convince herself. Still, she worked her now bare hand clumsily up against the car's console until she found the contact plate on the comm. "I've just got a feeling about this..." Her finger came in contact with the IO plate and negotiated a link connection. One of her other fairies perked up and came zipping over to hover before at arms length as a familiar sound chimed in her ear, the clarity it after so much muffled conversation was startling. "It's a... comm request?" Lily, the tiny figure, nodded enthusiastically.

"It's not a station feed?" Tatsuki asked, "Someone actually is calling the car?"

"I guess so," Orihime replied, somewhat mystified. She accepted the request and Lily put her hands to her tiny mouth. It must be audio-only, Orihime surmised, and the channel established itself through Lily with a tiny pop. "Hello?" she spoke, uncertainly into the channel.

"Oh good," came a voice, gruff and acerbic, out of Lily's mouth and Orihime smiled slightly at the absurdity of it, "I got through. Listen, you two in the hovercar, you need to get out of there."

"He says we need to get out of here," Orihime relayed.

"What? Why?" Tatsuki asked, "Anyway, no. We can't go back the way we came, and Ichigo's dad's ship is through there."

"It's not safe," continued the voice. "You can't go through, you don't know what's on the other side."

"There's something on the other side," Orihime went on.

"I don't care, it can't be any worse than what's on this side," Tatsuki said, unconvinced. "All we need to do is-"

"-whatever you do, don't-"

"=go through that door.="

The simultaneity of their voices and the silence that followed sent a chill through Orihime. She stared down at Lily as the tiny figure lowered her hands, seeing them tremble slightly. Meanwhile, Tatsuki was staring determinedly out the front windshield of the hovercar and Orihime found her gaze following her friend's line of sight. There, standing beyond the pileup of wrecked hovercars, stood the massive blastdoor barricade that sealed off the entire transit lane and pedestrian levels between sections. Huge and imposing, she had never seen them shut before today, and stenciled across the face of it a tall number '9' stared back at them.

"He's coming," whispered Lily in the comm's voice. Orihime glanced at the little fairy as she was shaking like a leaf. Lily clasped her hands over her mouth, her tiny eyes wide in terror.

Through the silence, in the still, thin air and through their softsuit helmets, they heard it. Like a rattling through the body, starting in the chest and thrumming through the teeth, they heard it. A roar. Rising like a tide, it rolled over them, gradually building until they were wincing behind their faceplates, ineffectually covering their ears as the sound resonated with all that was unnatural, that tore and screeched like twisted metal and grinding bone. The roar died off just as the door before them, the massive, impossible door, shuddered as it was struck from the other side.

It shuddered as it was struck again.

"What... what is that noise?" Tatsuki asked. Orihime could see the whites all around her friend's eyes.

"I dunno Tatsuki," Orihime whispered, then down to the comm channel that Lily maintaining, "What is that? Please you must tell us."

"I _told_ you, you need to get the hell away from there, you and your friend Tats... wait _Tatsuki_? Tatsuki _Arisawa_?"

Orihime looked at Tatsuki, confusion written across her face. The barricade door gave another shudder and hydraulic fluid began leaking down the face of it. "Whoever is on the other end of this channel knows you, Tatsuki."

"How is that even possible?"

"If that's Tatsuki Arisawa," the voice went on, as if thinking to itself, "That would mean the only other person crazy enough to be out there during this kind of emergency would be... Oh fer fuck's sake..."

Orihime pursed her lips at the vulgarity. "What? Who are you?"

"You're Orihime, right? Orihime Inoue?"

"Yes, that's me..." Suddenly everything made a crazy kind of sense; the grouchy harsh voice, the direct orders. The comm system. She would've smacked her own forehead if she'd been able, but instead she leaned in closer to Lily, eyes alight with the thought of a familiar voice. "KON?!"


	30. Interlude

The plastipaper image he held in his hands had faded with time, but the memories that swam to the surface of his mind as he traced his fingertip across the curve of her cheek were as fresh as the day they happened. His cheeks, rough with stubble, dimpled as his vision split between the picture of her in his hands, and the thousands he had in his head. He brought the picture to his nose and breathed, the scent of her lingering over the box of mementos. His eyes opening, he glanced down and felt himself falter.

Broken for a moment, far more broken than anyone realized, his hands quivered as he brought them to his mouth. Years of unshed tears gathered at the edges of his eyes, standing their silent, stalwart vigil. He'd long made peace with them, knew them well, welcomed them. Like friends.

 _I miss my home, Masaki._ His eyes roved over the contents of the container. _I miss my wife._

There was another picture, this one newer and still vibrant with the color of life. A picture of the five of them, tangled in enthusiastic embrace, the twins still young and his son, beaming. His son, smiling like nothing in all the worlds could be wrong.

His son, who hadn't smiled like that ever again.

"You were right, Masaki," he whispered, finding himself unable to replace the picture of her in the box, even as he reverently moved it to one side. _Space wasn't a place to raise your kids_ she'd argued good naturedly, and it wasn't.

In fact, it was cold as hell.

There was another box in the furthest recesses in the storage bay, this one long buried and all but forgotten. Removing it was more excavation than retrieval, and once he set his hands on it, he could feel how utterly foreign its contents were now.

He made to replace the picture in its original box, but found he had tucked it securely in his breast pocket. The corner of his mouth slipped up, a shadow of a smile, and he simply patted the pocket gently instead. Steeling himself, he opened the lid of the final container and crouched. Drawing up the flight helmet from the top of folded material, he turned it so he could stare at the armored faceplate directly, the glassite catching the light and throwing his reflection back at him.

"I'm not the man they think I am." His fingers traced over one more thing, past the scuffs and scratches, sliding over a set of simple, stenciled letters. "No. No, no," he sighed, standing. When he received the encrypted comm, he could hardly have believed the man was serious. Isshin Kurosaki tucked the helmet beneath his arm and lifted an armored flightsuit from the container. His thumb traced over the callsign emblazoned on chest panel. He rolled the suit up and turned to leave, ready to reply to the comm.


	31. (Re)suscitated

"Why are we slowing down?"

The question was hard to hear over the rush of wind across her microphone array, and she had to shield it as they asked again. She flipped her audio to the external speakers and directed her gaze meaningfully down the train tunnel. "Because we're almost there," Rukia replied.

"What's going to happen when we stop?" The civilian was worried, face tense behind his emergency atmo mask, and she realized she had no idea what to say to him.

A meager light grew at the end of the tunnel as the cargo sled gradually slowed, vibrating slightly beneath her feet. Rukia felt a presence at her side and found Renji had moved to join her, the civilian turning an imploring look at him.

"There'll be sanctuary pods near the navy moorings," Renji said, dropping a steadying hand on the man's shoulder. "The two detectives can get one secured, and you'll all be safe there until we finish our mission." The man nodded, departing to the rear of the sled, and the confidence slipped from Renji's face as he did. He switched his comm back to the channel between them before continuing. "What exactly is our mission here?"

She turned to face him and was surprised to find that her hand had slipped to the weapon at her back. She knew everyone was on edge, was feeling the ragged effects of constant adrenalin burn, so she made a show of ensuring the weapon was secure before she spoke. "That prison ship docked to the station is connected to the Hollows that have attacked. Our mission is simple, we're going to gain access to the main Navy terminal deck, secure that ship, and decouple it." Her eyes flicked back to the civilians they'd taken from the cargo transfer point, hoping that would be enough to draw the Hollows away.

"Just the two of us?" he asked.

Rukia nodded. She was more concerned by the way the grav-sled was slowing further, the cargo bay of the Karakura Station Navy Outpost suddenly upon them. The sled came to a gentle stop in one beside one of the loading platforms and Rukia stepped from it onto the solid durocrete of the outpost, followed quickly by the others.

"End of the line," Renji muttered.

"Alright," Rukia said over her speakers, turning to face the assembled group behind her. "Renji, with me. Detectives Hitsugaya and Matsumoto, take the survivors and secure one of those sanctuary pods. Seal the blastdoor and go self-suff, but don't undock from the station for ninety minutes."

"What happens in ninety minutes?" Toshiro asked, quirking a white eyebrow at her from behind his faceplate.

"You come pick us up, we'll transmit coords," Rukia said, then switched the audio to their shared comm, "Or things will have gotten so out of hand that it won't matter where you are, so you might as well undock and take your chances."

Toshiro nodded, his face grave. "Understood," he replied over his speakers, the other survivors listening on.

Rukia turned and made her way across the empty loading bay, Renji at her back, eyes alert for movement. The bay closed up into the quartermaster's sector, all designed to process incoming and outgoing supplies and shipments. Cargo containers were stacked tall in neat rows, their orderly arrangement at odds with the chaos and havoc that had descended upon the rest of the station.

The two of them slipped through the bay, looking for the connection leading to the main Navy terminal for docking and undocking. Skipping the massive service door, they made their way to the side, cautiously moving through the darkness of the quartermaster's administrative office. It had a standard entrance to the terminal deck, smaller and more defensible, and from there they could locate the prison ship _Hueco Mundo,_ sealed to one of the main circular airlocks. Rukia put off thinking about what they'd find inside the prison ship, preferring to focus on the immediate. Leaning against the door frame inside the quartermaster's office, she gently nudged open the door a fraction and peered out.

"Minimal visibility," she relayed to Renji, standing at her side.

"Breach and sweep, then?" he asked, checking the sights of his weapon. She nodded stiffly, which earned her a cocky grin, his tattooed brows rising with the light in his eyes. "Just like old times then."

Without waiting for her to respond, or to see the flash of discomfort across her face, Renji rolled around her and pushed open the door, dropping to one knee and bringing his weapon to bear. The action was quiet and controlled, the entire point of it to provide minimal attention and maximum advantage. Rukia was right behind him, standing and aiming her own weapon in the opposite direction. Together they could effectively cover the field of fire at the cost of exposing their positions. It was a standard entry tactic for piracy, immediate and offensive. It was the opposite of naval entry tactics, and the realization of how easily and fluidly she and Renji had executed it made her even more uncomfortable. "Clear," she announced, brief and clipped.

"Clear," Renji replied.

They moved cautiously onto the terminal floor, the emergency lighting mounted up the walls throwing long, deep shadows across the wide area. Motes of dust wafted gently in the still air. "Atmo scrubbers have failed," Rukia voiced her realization.

"Pressure is holding at eighty percent of one atmo though," Renji replied, checking the readout. "At least we're not dealing with a hull breach."

"One disaster at a time," Rukia whispered, keeping her footfalls as soft as possible.

They made their way, slowly and without incident, to the ring of large, circular airlocks all evenly spaced along the main gantry level. Most berths were closed and empty, but a few had the bright piercing green light of stable airlock seal above them. The glowing registration that flickered above one particular airlock door, a door that stood open leading to darker halls beyond, read _CPS Hueco Mundo_ in standard, blocky letters. Leading Renji, she began moving towards it when her foot squished into the carpet.

"Got blood over here," she said, lifting up her boot. Her helmet lamps shined off glistening red wetness smeared across the sole.

"Yeah," Renji said, an odd note in his voice. Rukia lifted her head to glance towards his own lamps were shining. More was spattered onto the walls of the terminal, dripping in rivulets around the airlock door and seeping into great pools on the ground. "What the hell happened here?"

"Spray pattern implies small arms fire," Rukia said, her words sterile. Corroborating her assessment, there were the glints of shell casings littering the area. "Some kind of stand off against a breaching force, coming from the prison ship."

"Where are the bodies then?"

Rukia looked around and Renji was right. There was a massive amount of blood and shattershot impact marks scoring the blastdoors, but there were no bodies. A shudder tried to course up her spine, but the soldier in her firmly refused to allow it. "Let's just keep moving forward." The two of them quietly proceeded through the wide open airlock, stepping into the darkness.

* * *

"Wait, Ichigo, just hold on a minute!"

"No way," he shot back, sliding his helmet back over his head and sealing it to the neck bracket. "If you want to wait here Keigo, that's fine, but I've got to go."

"But there's no way you'll make it in time," Mizuiro spoke up, the voice of reason.

Ichigo's mask slid shut with a metallic clang. "I have to try, that's Tatsuki and Orihime out there."

"I'll come, Ichigo," Chad said, dropping everything he was doing to help the young man.

"Count me in as well," Uryu said. "I made an oath to protect this system from those creatures out there, and that extends even to non-Freespacers like you," he finished wryly.

"I don't need your protection," Ichigo retorted, cross.

"No, but I imagine you could use my help," Uryu returned, unperturbed.

"You guys are just going to run off, right at that thing we saw on the videofeed?!" Keigo exclaimed, "The barricade is in between it and the girls! They'll be fine!" Chad, Uryu, Ichigo, and Mizuiro stopped and stared at him. His confidence began to whither under their glares. "Won't they...?"

"Let's get going, there's a lot of ground to cover between here and there," Ichigo announced instead.

"I told you, you'll never make it there on foot," Mizuiro pointed out again.

"And I told yo-"

"So why don't you drive instead?" the young bartender asked over the top of Ichigo.

Ichigo paused and stared at him. "Transit Authority is offline, the car-comp grid is down. Nav won't work on any cars."

"Nav won't work on any cars without a manual mode," Mizuiro corrected, a twinkle in his eye.

"Yeah, but there aren't any loaders or tugs around here," Uryu said, seeds of suspicion growing in the vigilante.

An amused smirk turned Mizuiro's lips as he spun on his heel. "Follow me."

A short walk later, from out the rear sealed door of the bar and down a corridor to a shuttered storage facility, Mizuiro was standing in front of a lockpad with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. He pressed the contact plate on his glove to the pad while looking over his shoulder, the pad lighting green and the shutter beginning to rumble in its tracks. "Tugs and loaders are not the only things on this station with a manual mode." The starlight filtered down into the storage space as the door rolled up.

"Is that...?" Uryu began, faltering.

"Nice," Chad nodded.

Ichigo's brows rose behind his mask, speechless at what he was looking at. The startlight spilled across gleaming expanses of polished black paneling, sculpted and smoothed to aerodynamic precision. Glints of silver chrome sparkled in the pale light, glowing with a mirror shine. In the place of docking struts or contact points, it very literally crouched over four, wide black tires, poised with an aggression he was unused to seeing in a machine.

"You've had this, the whole time," Keigo whispered as he turned to Mizuiro, stricken and wounded, "AND YOU'VE NEVER LET ME BORROW IT?"

"Sorry Keigo," Mizuiro replied completely unapologetically, "But of all the women in my life, this is the one I cherish the most." He spun a ring around his gloved fingers, a jingle of clinking metal filling the air. "Now, I understand you guys need a ride?"

A few minutes later, the five of them seated in the surprisingly roomy interior, the vehicle was roaring down the centerline transit lane with Mizuiro behind the wheel. Ichigo kept staring at the controls Mizuiro was working, all of them manual yet responsive. "What kind of car is this?" he asked. He was forcibly reminded of the hover-bike style controls and manual switchplates that covered the bridge stations of the _Zangetsu._

Mizuiro turned the wheel slightly and the car nimbly veered around some of the fallen debris that littered the transit lane, the tires, the _tires!_ gripping the durocrete. "You wouldn't know it," he replied over the sound of the engine, "It's all been custom printed by auto-fabs and hand-built."

"You built this?" Chad asked from the rear seat. Of the three back there, he was the only one who didn't look sullen about the close quarters.

"Yep," Mizuiro said, pressing his foot down and opening up the throttle, the car lunging forward as it accelerated. "And I've never been allowed to drive it on the station before today."

In front of them, the lights on the front of the car illuminated the eighth barricade door still standing open as it whizzed past. The ninth barricade, along with Orihime, Tatsuki and Fisher, were all coming up. Ichigo's hand clenched the door handle, they were nearly there.

* * *

"We have to get out of here!" Tatsuki yelled, trying to break Orihime's paralyzed stare. The assault had continued against the massive barricade door, the reinforced frame beginning to bend and buckle from each heavy blow. Tatsuki had rushed from the hovercar they'd taken shelter in and around to Orihime's side, putting her tired muscles to work in pulling out the stunned auburn-haired girl.

"Where?" Orihime asked, her voice quiet and focused with the energy not-quite-panic. Her eyes were wide as she turned to face her friend.

"I don't care, anywhere but here!"

The two of them turned and began running away from the barricade door but didn't make it more than a few meters. Shadows were slinking through the milky starlight down the lane, crawling and lurching drunkenly among the abandoned husks of the hovercars and debris. "Tatsuki!" Orihime called out in warning, harsh and desperate. She heard the other curse as she felt herself hauled back in the other direction.

"The service hatches," Tatsuki decided, "We can get to the other side of the barricade through them."

"The other side?!" Orihime gasped, her mind quickly conjuring images of what it was on the other side of the barricade blastdoor, doing its best to batter it down.

"No choice," Tatsuki growled. A heavy blow shook the ground beneath their feet as the top most portion of the blastdoor bent away from the frame. The two girls froze and watched as it creased and wrenched from the pressure, thousands of pounds per square inch forcing the reinforced metal aside. A shadow beyond the tall frame moved, a single malevolent eye glowing in the darkness beyond, holding Tatsuki's own for a chilling moment. Another second and the spell was broken, the form moving again as the thundering impacts resumed, accompanied by the roar of air rushing through the breach and into the vacuum on their side of the barricade. Tatsuki looked down at her traitorous legs, unwilling to take one more step towards whatever giant thing that was on the far side of blastdoor barricade. _Move_ , she commanded, _I have not spent my life training in Photon just to die here._ She shifted her eyes, aiming them directly at the service hatches adjacent to the barricade door. _I will not be afraid_. She steadied her grip on Orihime's hand, shifted her feet slightly, and burst into motion.

"Tatsukiiiiiii!" Orihime yelled, dragged bodily along.

* * *

"There!" Ichigo shouted, jabbing a finger out towards the windshield. The huge, monstrous form of Fisher's mangled, haphazardly constructed body was obstructing almost the entire barricade blastdoor. Muscles rippled beneath shiny, too-taut skin, the flesh woven and laced around servos and hydraulics that spun and juddered as it threw itself against the blastdoor, prying it apart with its grotesque mockeries of clawed hands affixed to the ends of its misshapen arms.

Ichigo, intent on his target, was then thrown bodily forward as Mizuiro slammed his foot on the brakes. His chest hitting the glove box as his head become uncomfortably stuck between the windshield and the dash, he felt the car screech to a stop. Pushing himself back into his seat, he turned a glare at Mizuiro. The driver, however, had his eyes locked out the windshield.

"If I hadn't seen it on the feeds from the station cameras, I wouldn't have believed it," Mizuiro muttered. He felt Ichigo's eyes on him and turned to face the masked young man. "What? I'm not driving this car any closer than this."

Ichigo's brows knit in consternation at the young man. "Fine." Ichigo gripped the door handle and slid from the car.

"Ichigo," Uryu began, sliding from the backseat. "What exactly is the plan here?" Fisher continued to tear away the barricade door heedless of their approach, the sound of wind whistling past through the gap it had torn growing ever louder.

Without turning to look at him, Ichigo said. "Uryu, what's in the bag?"

"I don't see how that's of any consequence, and you didn't answer my question."

"You've been carrying that bag around this whole station, you said it was a 'special order'." Ichigo looked over his shoulder at the bespectacled man, said spectacles beginning to slip down his nose behind the man's faceplate. "There's only one guy I can think of that would 'special order' something in the middle of a disaster, have the item be important enough for your to be willing to entertain making it, and have the resources to pay you for it, during all this." He turned to square his shoulders at him.

Uryu sighed, holding the strap of the bulky bag but unwilling to immediately surrender it.

"I think it's time you told us what was in the bag," Ichigo said.

* * *

Like the two before it, the heavy security door was standing wide open, this one stenciled 'Cell Block 3'. Hazy yellow light filtered down from overhead, backup lights on faltering power providing just enough illumination for Rukia and Renji to navigate the cell-cramped, low-ceilinged corridors. They had trudged through two cell blocks on their way to the bridge without seeing a single trace of habitation, living or otherwise. Cell Block 3 had changed that.

"Ugh," Renji muttered, distaste curling his lip away from his teeth.

Apparently even Renji had a threshold for violence, Rukia mused, outwardly unperturbed. She gingerly stepped over sprawled out legs of what remained of one of the Hollowfied, struts of metal screwed directly into skin and bone. The walls were splashed with long-coagulated blood, the floor strewn with rubbery bits of what had once been living, breathing people. Down the hall, she could see growing signs of a struggle, the walls peppered with a familiar scorch pattern. "A guard in a P-D-S," Rukia pointed out, "He made his last stand there."

The two of them slowed slightly, walking past. They saw, and yet felt compelled to look away, the little that remained of him was still harnessed into his personal defense system. A valiant effort, but ultimately futile. The two hoped it was not an omen for their own mission. At the end of the cell block was the first closed door they had come to, this one the same kind of heavy security as all the others, but curiously bereft of any label or stencil.

"This should be the fourth cell block," Rukia mentioned, looking up at its impassive, blank facade.

"High sec, solitary," Renji agreed. He shrugged of a glance in his direction, how familiar he was with prison ships was not a topic of the present conversation.

"Think it's locked?"

"Only one way to find out." Renji made to reach for the latch and was surprised to find Rukia not stopping him. He looked over his shoulder at her to see her ready in a shooter's stance, her weapon already out and at the level. Blowing a small breath, he turned back to the latch and gave it a sharp tug. The door swung open easily on well oiled joints, the whole of it moving outward and open with the gentlest of effort.

"This is not what I expected," Renji said, looking through the doorway. Instead of the bare metal walls, cell doors, and grated floor of the last three cell blocks, they were looking through the open door at gleaming white polyceramic tile floors, soft glo-paint accented ceilings and walls done in smooth, simple white paneling. Stepping inside, Renji ran a gloved finger along one of the wood accents, depressing a concealed stud and stepping back as the panel beside him swung open, smoothly and silently, providing access to the conduits and system interlinks within. "This looks a lot like-"

"A hospital." Unwilling to say so out loud, she knew Renji was right; the interior of the prison ship _Heuco Mundo_ entirely renovated as a state of the art hospital was not something she'd been expecting. She looked around the gently lit, softly accented corridor and felt an emotion twist in the pit of her stomach. If she didn't know better, she'd swear they'd returned to the hospital ward that had once held her sister.

"They've been moving something through here," Renji went on, crouching to run his hand across a series of wheel marks. The tile here had been run over by gurneys, lots of them.

"Lets keep moving," Rukia said. The bridge and crew stations on the prison ship were all the way through the high security wards. It made accessing it from the loading bay difficult, but was also in the opposite direction of any possible escape attempts.

"Where is everyone?" Renji asked.

Renji had a habit of asking questions whenever he was nervous. Rukia ignored him and continued on, being careful to glance through any open doors and skirt her way past yawning corridors. Renji brought up the rear, occasionally opening more side panels and checking the interiors. They had nearly made it to the bridge, Rukia felt certain it was just beyond the main blastdoor at the end of the corridor they were in, when she heard Renji speak up behind her.

"Rukia, hang on a sec."

Stopping to aim an icy glare at him, she found him buried shoulder's deep in yet another opened panel, reaching in and testing something. She heard a few more beeps from whatever device he'd pulled from one of his various pockets across his piecemeal softsuit before he drew back. "What is it?" She'd intended it to come out exacerbated, but the look on his face drove her pitch into concerned instead.

"The power lines through this sector of the ship are all overloaded, feeding back that way," he jerked his head over his shoulder. "The reactor must be at redline, but there's no output going to the engines. It's all powerplant. If we don't reroute the power and cycle the reactor down, we'll never get this thing unmoored and moving."

"We can do that from the bridge."

Renji nodded but still looked skeptical. "I'd rather get a look at what could possibly be drawing this much juice, before we just cut it off cold-turkey."

Rukia pursed her lips and glanced back towards the blastdoor to the bridge. Defeated, she nodded in curt acquiescence and trotted back to catch up to Renji. Annoyingly, he'd smeared a cocky grin across his face as they doubled-back the way they came, turning down another corridor and following the power feed. She watched his shoulders swiveling back and forth at each junction they passed, his eyes raking over the corridors and studying the bay labels. "Wait a minute, are you looking for _loot?"_

Clutching his chest, mock wounded, he looked down at her. "Of course not! But, if by chance we _find_ any, well, it'll be a happy coincidence."

Again, Rukia said nothing. She was afraid if she spoke, all she'd do is unfavorably compare Renji to Ichigo.

The power conduits led them away from the route to the bridge, and towards what could only have originally been the ship's main medical bay. While the majority of the non-cell block sections of the ship had been retrofitted into a hospital ship, all the original infrastructure to support serious life-support and the more advanced medical systems must have been in the medical bay. Renji and Rukia closed on the door, each of them wary of what might be on the other side. Activating the door control, they tensed as the door slid smoothly aside.

* * *

From his place under the cover of shadowed angled structure work, Ichigo kept his eyes focused on Fisher's monstrous, hulking new body. How he'd managed to survive Lirin's sacrificial blast, and who'd built this horror of a new body for him he didn't know, and didn't care. All Ichigo concerned himself with was dealing with the obstacle in his path.

The thing keeping him from reaching his friends.

He shifted his shoulders, willing himself to trust in Uryu, and narrowed his eyes. Intent. Preparation. These he'd accomplished. All that remained was action. All he had to do was reach the utility door set in the barricade, open it and get Orihime and Tatsuki to safety.

As Fisher reared back to smash a heavy, clawed fist into barricade door, Ichigo burst from his place in the shadows. Sprinting as fast he could, he'd covered half the distance to his target before Fisher noticed the movement in his periphery, halting his heavy pounding and twisting to face him, dropping heavily to the ground with a station-shaking slam.

"WHAT" came the thunderous voice through Ichigo's comms, ringing in his head. The sound nearly deafening, Ichigo instinctually clutched his helmeted head, stumbling briefly but managing to catch himself. Glancing at Fisher, no more than two dozen meters away, Ichigo saw the towering monstrosity slam its fists into the durocrete beneath them, the barricade wall smeared with bloody streaks behind. He managed to get another stride in before he watched Fisher hunch down, the myriad of blazing eyes sunken into his misshapen face fixed hungrily upon him.

Fisher's back opened up, his energy weapon swinging around to point directly at him. A spark of red ignited deep within the bore of the massive cannon and Ichigo knew he'd never make it another step. The moment, frozen in Ichigo's mind, was as clear as glass. He wasn't going to make it. That cannon would fire and the laser fire would sweep across him, atomizing everything in its path, leaving nothing but a puddle of superheated plasma-fied durocrete in its wake. There was no time to dodge, no time to run, no time to hide, no time to even _speak_.

The light within the cannon barrel flared and filled his vision with crimson a moment before darkness closed in around him.

"That's the signal, let's go," Chad called out. Mizuiro was already gunning the engine and dropping the car into gear, sending it springing forward with a squeal of tire on pavement. From the shadowy recesses of a concealed corner, the headlights of the car blazed into the starlit dimness, sweeping across Fisher's massive bulk.

"Faster!" Uryu yelled from the rear seat.

His foot firmly on the peddle, Mizuiro felt the car's rear wheels sliding out as he cut sharply to the left, veering away from the glistening flesh and corroded metal of the massive Hollow construct. "Now now!" he yelled, gripping the steering wheel.

Fisher's particle beam cannon flickered for a moment, his attention refocusing on the fishtailing car that was zooming past, and a moment was all that was needed. From the side of the sliding car came four lines of red-orange light, arcing through the air from the rear windows. Confused, Fisher stared at the swirling blazes of flickering light as they sailed directly towards him. Fisher may have been fast, for as big as he was, but between the acceleration they'd gained from the car and his focused use of his energy weapon, all Fisher had time to do was watch as the four lights sailed through the air and smash directly into his face and shoulders.

Whoever had given Fisher this huge bio-mechanical body, stitched together of flesh and circuits, muscle and metal, had done so well enough to give him remarkable control over both his servo-actuators and biological nervous system. A working nervous system was like a computer diagnostic routine, and it could give information back regarding its status. And nothing communicates a status like pain.

Fire, hot and angry, erupted from the shattering bottles, licking up Fisher's huge hide and dripping down to spill across the floor beneath him. Reeling in sudden, blinding redness of it, Fisher's gaping maw opened and his howl of agony shook the floor of the station. Chainsaw teeth and whiping steel tentacles lashed as he ducked, trying in futile vain to avoid the spread of the flames. What little skin he had sloughed off, exposing angry red muscle and raw nerves to the swirling flames as he writhed in agony. The spark in the darkness! I BURN AGAIN! Seething, his eyes narrowed in black hatred, he stared through the pain at the smoldering scar his energy weapon had left upon the station's transit lane. A mound of charred ash was all that was left of Ichigo Kurosaki.

The ash stirred.

"How many times," Ichigo asked, rising, "Do I have to burn you, Fisher?" He could see the incredulity even on Fisher's misshapen, alien face. As he stood, he glanced down to the material he had draped himself with, the garment Uryu had been keeping in the bag. A special order, he'd called it, and he'd known exactly who'd ordered a long, black coat made from the same carbon nanoweave fabric that sleeved the _Zangetsu_ : Kisuke Urahara. _Well Kisuke_ , he thought as he felt the coat settle comfortably about his shoulders, _I think I'm going to hang onto this for a while._

"WHAT," came the inevitable deafening bellow over his comms. Inwardly, Ichigo was surprised at how well it had worked as well. The material of the coat wicking away the bombarding energy and channeling it down and around him, out bottom hem of the coat and into the surrounding durocrete. Ichigo frowned behind his skeletal mask, noticing that hem was now somewhat tattered and frayed. Fingers of smoke were still curling from the blasted pavement all around him, and he took a purposeful step across the blackened surface towards the barricade. Fisher was a fire-scarred cripple of melted flesh, his synthsteel body useless without the muscles stitching it all together, still managed to recoil with an animal fear, shying painfully away as he took another step. Noting this, Ichigo did not even deign to look in his direction, putting all the confidence he had in a slow, purposeful walk to the barricade utility door, letting the black material of the nano-weave ripple around him. Avoiding looking at what remained of Fisher had a two-fold benefit, Ichigo decided, because it would really ruin his image if he puked inside his helmet.

Getting to the barricade gag-free, he found the utility door mostly undamaged, the frame of it bent and blocking one half of the blastdoor from receding. He'd managed to manually cycle the door and release the pressure locks, heaving the massive thing open a few scant inches when sudden movement from beyond lunged out at him. A fist, gloved in a softsuit but still balled and solid, came whistling out of the gap in the doors and missed him by mere centimeters. "Hey!" he shouted over his speakers, "Watch it!"

The fist drew back and was replaced by the glassite faceplate of a softsuit, a very recognizable face behind it. "Who's there?!" she demanded, peering at him.

"Relax Tatsuki, it's me Ichigo." He held up his hands, warding off any further attacks. She looked him up and down from beyond the slim gap in the door, clearly unimpressed by his black armored flightsuit, skeletal mask and helmet, and long black coat.

"The Ichigo I know dresses better than that," she said flatly.

"Ichigo?" came another voice from beyond the utility door. Tatsuki was nearly bowled over as another recognizable figure leaned into the narrow gap. "Hi-eeee! I knew you were out there!" Orihime shot him a megawatt smile.

"How'd you know it was him?" Tatsuki began, only to watch Orihime open her mouth in preparation to answer while pointing at her nose. "Uh, know what?" she interrupted, Tatsuki throwing up her hands, "Forget I asked."

Slightly crestfallen, Orihime simply shrugged it off and turned to face Ichigo. "I don't suppose you have anything to treat decompression sickness?"

Thrown, Ichigo paused. "Uh, no." His mind caught up with her conversation. "Wait, is your suit ruptured, either of you?!"

"No silly," Orihime dismissed. "I took my glove off is all."

"You took your-" He tilted his head at her, watching her hold up a hand to demonstrate, wiggling a few gloved fingers and then grimacing slightly at her own hand, the pain of decompression seemingly setting in.

"Nevermind that!" Tatsuki snapped, edging her way back into view. "We need to get this damn door open, this whole section is going to collapse soon!"

Nodding, Ichigo returned to the manual override and continued to haul open the door, Tatsuki and Orihime helping to push it open from inside. Widening the gap a bit more, Tatsuki was able to squeeze through but they found they had to open it further to get Orihime through.

"Sor-ry...," she muttered, chuckling away her red-faced embarrassment at being pinned across the chest in the utility door gap.

Together, the three of them retreated from the bent and broken barricade door and back out onto the transit lane proper, staring around at the starlit gloom for any signs of Uryu and the others. Fisher had dragged his massive bulk towards an alcove near the embarkation deck, a long smear of red and black glistened wetly in the dim light. They all gave him a wide berth, skirting the far side of the embarkation deck and making their way to the wide steps leading up to the transit lane. Ichigo could hear the car rumbling up ahead, but felt a clenching pang in his gut, slowing him. Something wasn't right.

"I don't see them," Ichigo muttered, scanning the transit lane for signs of the others. The car was idling but the doors were left open, abandoned.

"Don't bother concerning yourself with them," called out a voice from the shadows.

Ichigo spun towards the sound, his arm slicing out to sweep Tatsuki and Orihime behind him.

The shadow detached itself from the gloom around it, walking with a casual, confident stride through the darkness. He was silhouetted against Fisher's massive bulk for a moment, until he stepped into the pool of milky starlight streaming down from above, staring at them across the deck level. "It is yourself, Ichigo Kurosaki, that you should be concerned with."

"Who are you?" Ichigo demanded, in no particular mood for theatrics (standing defiantly as a black coat billowed and rippled around you not-withstanding). Something told him that this was the figure they'd seen before, down in the commercial sector. The one Fisher had ignored and all the other Hollowfied had steered clear of. Yet, even as Ichigo stared at him, his lank hair hanging like a dark curtain past his face, the tattered remains of some type of uniform hanging off his emaciated body, Ichigo couldn't shake the feeling that he knew him. He knew that voice from somewhere.

"You," Ichigo accused, "You're responsible for this."

The figure scoffed, a remarkably human gesture despite the glints of metal Ichigo could see bolted through his body and how one of his arms had been replaced entirely with some kind of apparatus. "You give me too much credit. No, we owe the debt and so we serve, the Master's will compels us, and so we act." He turned to glance at the hulking, injured form of Fisher in the blastdoor alcove. "Some of us with more clarity than others."

"Who is it, who sent you here?" Ichigo's voice had lost it's roughened edge, slipping down into smooth and black. Tatsuki and Orihime both paused, glancing at his back.

"The one you have defied at every turn," the figure answered cryptically. "You, who would not be so easily consumed, you, who joined the White Moon against us, you who the Master's human agents failed to eliminate. You, who prevented the Master's first soldiers from fulfilling their goal." The figure was growing more enraged, eyes narrowing and shoulders bunching, spittle flying from his cracked and bleeding lips. He gestured to Fisher, "You, who nearly destroyed our behemoth. The Master has released us, _finally,_ and The Master requires you dead, Ichigo Kurosaki." The figure turned to face him head on. "And you have an annoying habit of remaining alive."

The human agents, that must've been Revolver and the pirate mercenaries he concluded. The first soldiers must have been the freshly Hollowfied men and women who'd attacked them on the comm relay station. They'd been released, so these haggard, bone-thin horrors shambling across the damaged station were what was left of those soldiers: Hollows pulling the strings of near-corpses, and all of them hunting for him. That was why Fisher was here, that was why this figure was here, and with a rush of clarity Ichigo knew who this figure was...

* * *

_"Rukia," Ichigo admonished harshly. He ducked down through the hatch but stopped as he saw the fresh smear of blood across the floor. Getting his feet back under him, Ichigo rose up in the hallway and checked on Rukia's bandage. "Dammit Rukia, this thing is fucking soaked. Be more careful or your arm isn't going to close."_

_"Uh huh," she replied dismissively. She began walking down the corridor towards the computer bay when she felt Ichigo's hand close around her uninjured shoulder, pulling her to the side. She was about to ask what his problem was and tell him off for mothering her about her injury when she heard a limping, dragging kind of sound. The two of them pressing into the shadows, they could hear a figure shuffling around the computer bay around the corner of the blastdoor, soon joined by another from the other computer bay entrance._

_"Status?" one croaked, his ragged voice vaguely familiar._

* * *

Vaguely familiar. His voice caught in his throat, Ichigo was unable to speak as the cold dread of terrible realization well up inside him. Just beneath the sallow, too-thin skin, the lank black hair, the staring eyes, and the Hollow presence wearing his body like a sick masquerade, he was there. He felt a light presence at his side, the tentative touch of hands on his outstretched arm, and he didn't have to look to know who it must have been.

When it comes to cruelty, the universe seemed to be singling out his friends.

"How did you survive the comm station?" Ichigo breathed.

"The will to survive can be a powerful thing," it spat out, his voice becoming ragged, a yellow gleam in his eye.

"Sora...? Is that you...?" Orihime's voice was a soft, broken thing.


	32. Who Pulls the Strings?

Her fingers, tense and tight on his arm, worried at the stiff armor padding of his flightsuit. She shuffled closer to his side, her eyes never leaving the figure approaching them from out of the dark. Her lips were moving with tiny denials but her eyes didn't blink, were unwilling to shy away from the truth. Tears gathered at the edges of them, then made a pair of swift tracks down her cheeks.

"Is it really you, Sora?" she asked. The once-young, once-man stepped into a slanting shaft of starlight, hair hanging limp across his face while his shoulders twitched with his shallow breaths. "Wh... what happened to you?" She sniffed, her hands tensing as if to wipe away the tears on her face before realizing she couldn't.

Ichigo laid a steadying hand onto Orihime's shoulder, preventing her from approaching any closer. Her breath hitched and she stilled beneath his touch. Her hand left his arm and he felt her fingers against his, grasping them as she cast a brief, watery smile of gratitude towards his masked face. He didn't return it. Instead, he kept his eyes firmly on the figure. Data from the figure's unrestricted link broadcast swam up in his vision and he could see the ID marker was corrupt but recognizable, his link parsing out enough garbage data to know for certain that Orihime was right, this was her brother. The brother that had done his best to care for her all on his own, forced into taking long-haul jobs out to the Rim and back just to afford to keep her here on the station. The last time he'd seen Sora felt like a lifetime ago, when he and Orihime had still been together. When things were simple and he could pretend to be happy. When he could fool himself into thinking he was happy. It hadn't lasted, and Sora been gone when they fell apart. He'd left for the Rim as part of his father's crew before Sora had ever returned.

The Hollowfied narrowed his eyes at Orihime. "The 'Sora' you knew is gone," he said simply. Lips, thin and dry, parted back from yellowed teeth and bleeding gums as he took a step towards them, a wheezy rattling breath breaking the stillness that followed his words.

"No! I don't believe you! Sora! You have to stop this!" she pleaded.

Not-Sora squinted at her, tilting his head. "You clearly do not understand your situation," it spoke, his voice hoarse and dry, "Though I am hardly surprised." He took another step, but this one faltered a bit, his leg seeming to buckle slightly beneath him. He glanced down at it, snapping it firmly back into position, shook his head and redirected his attention back to them.

"Sora!" she cried.

"No," Ichigo said, managing to stop her from rushing forward. "That isn't your brother anymore."

"It is!" she asserted, "It is him, it's my brother! Sora!"

"Stop, Orihime," Ichigo said, soft but firm. He turned to face the figure standing across from them, yellow glinting from the glassite on his mask. Beside him, he could have sworn he felt her will power crumble in defeat. "Listen to it, even if that's Sora's voice, those aren't his words. It's using your brother."

"Using..." not-Sora scoffed, "Yes I suppose, as one uses a tool, or anything else of little consequence."

"Stop," Orihime gasped, "Just... stop it."

"You... humans and your pathetic sentiments, your ridiculous emotional attachments," not-Sora sneered, continuing to move towards them. Behind him, more shapes came shuffling out of the dark, all of them pausing and looking to not-Sora as if for direction. He gave them little more than a dismissive snort and they retreated back into the shadows. "Soft, and weak without the dead shells you cover yourselves in. All blind and deaf to the dark of the void," he hissed, voice like sandpaper. "Such energy, such effort required to sustain your meager existence, so fragile and delicate in an unforgiving, hostile environment. This is no place for you. Such a waste, as you are."

A hot anger shot through Ichigo and he stepped in front of Orihime. "So you think what? We don't belong here?" he said, his tone low, voice harsh. "Last I checked this is our station, our _system_ , if anyone's unwelcome here, it's you."

"Your opinion means as little to us, as does a speck of dust to a stellar giant." Not-Sora asked, derision oozing from his words. "Your self-important delusion of sovereignty would be laughable if you weren't all so insignificant."

"So... So what is it you want?" Orihime whispered, "If you need something we'll give it to you, just let our people go. There's no need to fight..."

"If only it were that simple," not-Sora answered. "No, our ultimate goal cannot simply be given, and these," he stared down at his hand as he clenched a fist, "Biological units have been effective at accomplishing certain objectives, and in time, with proper modification and replacements, may continue to be of some limited use. But in truth, they are just another resource, a consumable one at that. " He turned his eyes back to them, rheumy and faintly simmering with a golden lambent light. "Luckily, they are easily replaced. Seize them, bring the others."

Movement erupted from within the nearby shadows, Hollowfied surging from the darkness, reaching out with splayed hands and lifeless eyes. Surrounded by grasping hands and arms, filthy, tattered softsuits and wheezing, rattling breaths, Ichigo and Tatsuki did their best, striking out with heavy boot and armored flightsuit glove until a scream rent the air. Each faltered, looking to Orihime as she was jerked away from them, the second it took being more than enough for their own arms and legs to be grabbed, weighed down to the hard durocrete and restrained.

Through it all, Ichigo knew not-Sora was watching dispassionately from beyond the mass of sickly bodies. Behind him, Chad, Uryu, Keigo and Mizuiro were hauled over and all of them pushed roughly to their knees. Once arrayed, the Hollowfied withdrew, parting enough for them to see not-Sora and the wounded, monstrous Fisher beyond. "Are you guys alright?" Ichigo said to the side. He received various nods in reply, some stiff, others fearful.

"Why are you doing this Sora? Why? What is this ultimate goal?" Orihime asked. Her tone had changed from trembling to earnest, needing answers, needing justification for the horror that had befallen her home.

Not-Sora ignored her, turning instead to the side as one of the Hollowfied approached. Ichigo nearly gagged inside his helmet. What had once been a man was little more than rotting skin and exposed muscle. What was left of his hands were curled into claws by rigor, and he could barely keep upright on ruined legs. Head lolling to the side, his jaws hung open unnaturally and Ichigo could see the jagged splinters of pale rib bones piercing the flesh of his torso. Not-Sora took hold of the Hollowfied by the shoulder and pushed him roughly to the ground, reaching for something behind his back as he leaned over the figure. "You wish to understand?" not-Sora replied. "What would be the point? Even your own soldiers tasked with opposing us understand us only as 'biomechanical entities'. There has been only a single member of your pathetic race that has even managed to glimpse the truth of our kind." Not-Sora ignored the feeble jerking of the Hollowfied man pinned beneath his knee. From behind his back he drew a narrow device capped with a long, thin spike. Without emotion or hesitation, not-Sora slid the spike up into the base of the prone Hollowfied's skull. It jerked spasmodically once, then was still.

"Why... why did you do that?" Orihime asked, her eyes large and voice shaky.

Not-Sora glanced her way, slightly puzzled. "Do what? Do... this?" he asked, drawing out the spike with a small trail of blood and standing. He indicated the lifeless body at his feet, asking, "Do... do you think I've killed him?" He took a step closer, bringing the long spike to bear. "Of course you'd think that," he mused to himself. "No, I haven't killed him, his shell was weak, dying, and I don't have the resources to repair it properly. Instead, I've simply, what is it you call them? Oh yes," he held the needle very close to Orihime's faceplate, "Put him in an escape pod."

"You mean... that's how you can..." she swallowed thickly, her eyes never leaving the glistening needle, "Inject them... like..."

"Yes, like your neural links. They are a crude but undeniably effective biological interface, necessary to reconfigure the shell's computational structures," not-Sora said. "They bear a striking similarity to the systems my kind has long perfected."

"We are nothing like you," Ichigo snapped.

Not-Sora turned towards him with a cold glare. "Denial, the refuge of the ignorant." His eyes changed as he looked over Ichigo, the light flaring briefly and he took a cautious step closer. "You... you know the truth, yet deny it," he said, a smirk tugging up the corner of his chapped lips. "And to whom am I speaking now..." he said, "to a pilot?" He waved the syringe lightly back and forth, the teal liquid within glinting in the starlight. "Or to the _Pilot?_ "

A drop of icy dread trickled down to the pit of Ichigo's stomach and he flicked his eyes towards the confused looks on his friends' faces, hands clenching into tight fists behind his back. The Hollowfied figures holding him wrenched his arms painfully when he didn't respond immediately. "I'd say you're not making any fucking sense," Ichigo growled, covering the oily chuckle in the back of his mind.

"Is it really so difficult to grasp? Your kind possess the technology that allows your flesh to control computer systems. My kind is simply using your technology in reverse, these computer systems to control your flesh."

The image of swirling computational algorithms ghosted through Ichigo's memory, written in bizarre, alien characters. The sensation of his arm moving of its own volition, releasing the weapons while flying through the air turbine tunnel on Inzuri. "No way," Ichigo struggled, refusing to admit the truth.

"Denial, again. Perhaps another demonstration is in order. We'll see how much sense it makes once one of your companions," he menaced, eyes lighting with a golden hue, "Becomes one of mine."

The drop of dread that had settled in Ichigo's stomach grew, icing up his spine and painfully clenching at his heart. The thought of his friends discovering what he'd sacrificed, what he'd become, paled in comparison to the thought of one of them turned into one of these Hollowfied. Ichigo was seized by the image of Tatsuki, Orihime, Keigo and Mizuiro staring at him from behind dead, glazed eyes, their bodies mangled with clumsily attached plates of metal, and could not breath. He was trying to protect this station, he was trying to protect his friends, he could not let this happen.

"Do you mean to say you can just transplant bodies?" Uryu managed to ask, mouth dry.

Confused and angry, Ichigo mentally swore at Ishida. This monster had just admitted as much, had claimed he was going to inject one of them with it, had essentially confessed to _mind-rape_ and _murder_ , as the Hollowfied intelligence coiled through the neural link, digitally remapping the brain of the host. This was not the time to strike up a conversation about it!

Not-Sora turned a dull sneer at the young vigilante. "A woefully inelegant explanation for the true process, but one that, I suppose, aptly describes your point of view of it."

"And what of the original mind?" Uryu went on, "The consciousness of the host? Does it persist in any way after... after your process?"

"No."

"Not at all?" Uryu pressed.

Ichigo realized, belatedly, that Uryu was playing for time. He could see the young man's glasses flaring briefly in the light, streaming data across the surfaces as he made tiny adjustments with his fingers, his gloves controlling his interface.

"Nothing remains. Everything that once was, is erased."

Tatsuki stared down at the lifeless, broken body sprawled across the transit lane in front of them as she listened to what had once been Orihime's brother. A shaft of light drew her attention and she could see the pristine, unmarred syringe glinting in the pale light from the stars, filling her with an irrational loathing. Something so clean and pure seemed out of place surrounded by all this blood and filth and misery. "No way," she muttered, gaining courage. "No WAY! That's total bullshit! No way is something like that true, it's impossible!" She made to stand but was instantly seized again, leaving her struggling against her captors. "You can't just erase a person!"

Not-Sora faced her squarely. "I knew it was pointless to explain anything to you humans..." He walked up in front of her as the other Hollowfied struggled to hold her in place. "These shells you use to stumble blindly about this system, they are crude artifacts of metal powered by the simplest of atomic fires and you laughably call yourselves advanced. You imbue these craft with systems that manage the difficulties of travel through the void, and you call yourselves intelligent. You are not the pilots, little humans. You are the craft." He bent down towards her and lightly touched the faceplate of her helmet, leaving a greasy, bloody smear. "That's all you are. You eat, you shit, you fuck and if you are permitted, you make more humans; you barely manage the difficulties of preserving your lives because that's all you know how to do. You're just following your programming."

"Big words coming from a guy who basically admitted to being part computer," Tatsuki snapped.

Not-Sora knelt down to her level, his lips wide in a chilling smile. "Now, you're beginning to understand. You wrap yourself in metal shells, and then in these fabric ones, and beneath it all, inside, you humans are just flesh-machines. Just as empty, just as hollow." With a soft breath, he brought the syringe closer, the point nearly touching the glassite of her faceplate. "But we can change all that."

Tatsuki stared back at him, into the cold, lifeless eyes that had once been her best friend's brother. "I don't deal well with change," she snarled.

"That which does not change," Not-Sora stood and gazed down at her, his eyes flaring yellow for a moment, "Will die." Hollowfied immediately seized her arms and shoulders. "Forty-three percent sync ratio," he tsked to himself, "Well, it'll have to do, at least temporarily. Turn her around, and remove that helmet."

"No!"

"Tatsuki!"

Ichigo and Orihime were both hit hard across the back of their heads as they moved to stop not-Sora. Tatsuki kicked and writhed, trying to get away as the Hollowfied dragged her around, her back to not-Sora. The others were forcefully restrained as they moved to help as well.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!" she yelled, starting to panic.

"No need to resort to melodrama," not-Sora sighed, the long needle gleaming in the starlight. "This will only take a moment."

"Stop Sora! Wait!" Orihime yelled, then quailed as the thing that had once been her brother halted, turned to face her. "I..." she faltered, suddenly pinned under his alien gaze, "I volunteer." He voice was quiet but rang with the steel tone of surety.

"Orihime, shut up!" Tatsuki commanded, her panic rising as not-Sora stood and faced Orihime.

"I won't let you hurt any more of my friends," Orihime said. Managing to push herself to her feet. "I will do what I can to keep them safe."

"So you'd sacrifice what little consciousness you possess, just to keep this one from experiencing the same?" not-Sora clarified. "You'd choose oblivion, over watching your friend suffer?"

"I will die to protect them."

"Orihime..." not-Sora lamented. His tone changed with the tilt of his head, soft and pityingly, "Do not worry. Death comes to you all, inevitably." He stooped and in one smooth motion, unclipped Tatsuki's helmet, wrenched the seal apart and cocked his arm up into position.

"NO!"

Tatsuki, gasping in the thinning air, felt a sudden pressure at her back and the warmth of embrace. She had time enough to turn, seeing two Hollowfied stumbling off balance, stunned expressions on their sunken faces, and then further to the figure at her back. Orihime had wrapped her arms around her, holding her tight as she put herself in between her and what had once been her brother. "Ori... hime..." Tatsuki whispered as funny multicolored lights began dancing at the edges of her vision. There was a roar growing in her ears she found it suddenly difficult to focus, Orihime's face the last thing she saw as darkness closed in around her vision.

"I told you!" Orihime said, eyes flashing as she gently laid Tatsuki down, "You will not hurt any more of my friends!"

"Then my choice," not-Sora snarled, frustration growing, "Is clear!" With that he reached out and clutched Orihime's shoulder, his other hand bringing the syringe back.

Orihime faced him without fear, ready to accept the consequences of her actions, shielding Tatsuki from danger. Her grey eyes remained fixed on not-Sora's as she awaited the strike, but the tension in his arm only grew, he didn't swing and the moments dragged on. Not-Sora's face, screwed up in frustration, turned away from her to stare at his own arm as if willing it to act. His fingers, shaking from tension, looked as if they would drop the syringe at any moment and only infuriated not-Sora further.

"Imposs... i... buh..." he managed, his fingers going slack on Orihime's shoulder.

Stunned, Orihime was frozen in speechlessness as the light flickered and died from not-Sora's eyes. Behind them, through the miasma of pain and the stifling presence of the Hollow, she could see Sora, the real Sora clawing his way back up into consciousness. His arm lowered and the syringe fell to the durocrete with a clink, loud in the stillness around them. "Sora?" she whispered.

Sora nodded mutely, his eyes clear but quivering with obvious effort. His fingers curled gently on Orihime's shoulder and he appeared to be struggling between pulling her closer. With great determination, he finally pushed her firmly but gently away, in Ichigo's direction. He released her and it left him standing in a pool of starlight, blue-white light filtering around him as he teetered on unsteady legs.

"You... must..." Sora croaked, his voice strained and raspy. "You must... run, Orihime."

"No! No, Sora," Orihime refused. "I knew you couldn't be gone, I won't leave you!"

Sora stumbled, gasping as his eyes rolled back in his head. The yellow light suffused his eye sockets and glowed from deep in his throat, fingers curling and grasping in the air and the Hollowfied around them, gripping their arms and restraining them, all collapsed. The thudding of fleshy bodies and the scrap of metal hitting the durocrete all in unison was cacophonous in the still air, and in moments only Sora and the humans remained standing.

"All... I could do..." Sora gasped, winded far past the point of exhaustion.

"You, can control them?" Ichigo asked, looking around at the still bodies of the dozen Hollowfied.

He shook his head, "Not... the same..." He raised his head, looking at them from behind a veil of greasy black hair and raw agony. "I... cannot..." he began, "You all must run... RUN!"

Orihime and the others watched Sora not bother waiting for them to follow his demand, he only turned and began shuffling brokenly towards the large shiplock gate, towards where Fisher had withdrawn. "Wait! Please Sora!" Orihime cried.

"I have seen... what you plan... I understand..." Sora croaked, managing to stumble his way to the alcove where the burned and mutilated abomination was beginning to stir. "And you will never... reach it..." he promised.

"Sora please," Orihime begged. "Who, who are you talking to?" she went on quietly.

Sora did not reply, he only stumbled further from her, finally coming to a stop before the large airlock containing the scarred bulk of Fisher. From the darkness Fisher stirred as Sora neared, ponderously heaving himself upwards and looming into the starlight. The flesh of what remained of his upper torso and massive maw was bubbled and melted like wax, hanging slack in quivering ropes from blackened, pitted metal. Eyes glowed red as it turned its attention to Sora, huge servo claws pistoning and clenching across the durocrete.

Sora stood and raised his hands, choked out a gasp and clawed suddenly at his head. Fisher jerked back like a puppet on tangled strings, retreating immediately from the blastdoor frame and recoiling deeper into the shadows as Sora threw his head back, hands clenched at his throat in a rictus of agony. The moment released him and it was as if all the tension in his body suddenly fled, dropping him to his knees. Sora, leaning back and taking a shallow gasp for air, stared upwards through the Sunroof as the yellow light faded from his eyes again.

"Sora!" Orihime exclaimed, breaking free of Ichigo's arm and rushing towards him. The haunting yellow light behind his eyes was gone, the only expression he could manage was one of weary sorrow. "Sora! It's me, Orihime! I'm here!" she called to him, coming to his side but afraid to touch him.

"Ori-hime..." Sora managed to gasp in relief. His head tipped towards her, fingers twitching as they sought hers, but he made no further movement towards her. "Orihime," he said again, and the gentle smile in his voice soft hardened with seriousness. "Run."

"What? Sora, what do you mean-"

"Run!" he managed, voice raw and croaking. He sent himself sprawling forward, away from her again and towards the alcove. A hand out in front of him, fingers clenched, was all that kept Fisher at bay. "You... need... to run... all of you..." Sora took another halting step and grunted with effort, a sweep of his hand nearly knocking him back to his knees. His fingers curled at his temples and he shut his eyes. "Please, just go..." he begged, he pleaded.

Ichigo caught sight of the dozen Hollowfied around them stirring weakly, trying in vain to rise but seemingly robbed of their power to move. Fisher, however, was not so easily cowed and although Sora held some form of power over him, it was clearly straining the boundaries of his control.

"I... don't know... how long... I can hold on..." Sora said. "I... can feel them... all pushing... all screaming... they're ALL SO HUNGRY..." he screamed, squeezing his eyes shut.

A roar shook that station, low and rumbling, full of grinding machinery and wet, rusted hate. The massive, hulking form of Fisher heaved itself back to its mismatching feet, clawed limbs digging hard into the surface of the airlock chamber floor. Fisher fought to take a step, the urge to attack warring with the order to retreat, leaving the massive monster trapped somewhere in the middle.

"Why isn't that one down, like the others?" Ichigo asked, wary of the answer.

"It fights me," Sora said, managing another weary step, "For dominance... for control."

"How is that possible? You need to explain," Uryu demanded, shrugging off incredulous looks from the others. "If you have information-"

"There is no time," Sora said, echoing what every other person aside from Uryu was thinking, a hint of forlorn emotion in his raw, damaged voice. "I've seen... the traveler in the dark, the lonely shepherd..." He reached the alcove where Fisher drew up as high as possible, great maw hinging open in the concealing shadow. Within, a hot, smoky red glow limned the inside of horrid, interlocking flesh and machinery jaws. "Home, Salvation, God... it is all these things..." he says, holding up a shaking palm, halting Fisher. "The truth..." he turned to face them, locking eyes with his sister in an expression of sincere regret. "Their truth is even more terrible than you think."

"What? What could be so terrible?" Ichigo demanded, "We have to stop them, tell us!"

"They cannot be allowed to reach the heart of the station," Sora told them. He raised one hand to chest level in a gesture of farewell.

"Oh no," Orihime whispered as the yellow glow began to swirl in his eyes. In one smooth motion, Sora swiveled and placed his upheld hand on the panel beside him. With a faint hiss of hydralics, the blastdoor sealed shut to separate Sora and Fisher from the seven humans. She watched the yellow gleam flicker in his eyes, fighting for control. "Sora! NO!"

"Remember... what I said," Sora said, managing a breathy gasp as the limits of his control wore out. Behind him, Fisher seemed to realize what had happened, and raised a massive clawed hand up, reaching for the sealed blastdoor. It wouldn't take much for Fisher, even in this weakened state, to tear his way back through the door but before he could, the airlock cycle was overriden, the status light flicking from green to red so fast it bypassed yellow entirely, and the exterior door irised open.

Orihime angrily pushed Ichigo's arm out of the way, sprinted to the viewport in the blastdoor and watched in shock as her brother was whisked silently away into the infinite night. "SORA!" she screamed, hands balled into helpless fists and beating against the viewport. "Sora..."

Ichigo approached, watching her hang her head against the blastdoor and limply smack it with her fist again and again. His hands, unsure, reached out for her as he tried to think of some way to console her.

-thud- Her fist against the viewport.

"Orihime, we need to go."

-thud- "I don't understand..."

"Come on, Orihime," he said, firming up his voice, "We can't stay-"

Orihime drew back her hand a final time, anguish and pain writ plainly on her face, and brought it down against the unyielding surface of the viewport glassite.

**-WHAM-**

Orihime jerked back, staring at her fist. "I didn't-" she trailed off, looking back at the stunned faces of the others. She belatedly realized that they were staring over her shoulder, through the viewport. She spun back around and came eye-to-eyes with Fisher, dangling out of the airlock by one massive claw-hooked hand. A scream echoed in her ears and she was scrambling back to join the others before she realized it was her doing the screaming.

"Are you in position?" Ichigo asked again, standing calmly. He ignored the questioning look the other's shot him, choosing instead to stare out the viewport at Fisher. The Hollowfied abomination was lit harshly by the unfiltered sunslight, frost creeping over cancerous flesh and machinery. Ichigo felt no fear. Only pity.

"I am," came the response over his aural implant.

"Open fire," Ichigo commanded.

From an angle high above somewhere, tracer lines of sizzling yellow-orange came raining down across the viewport's vantage. The light strobed across them and in the silence, they watched as Fisher was unceremoniously, mercilessly destroyed. Carved into pieces by auto-cannon fire, hunks of him drifting and spinning away into the night, most turned away in disgust. Ichigo watched through it all, until Fisher's red-glowing eyes flickered and faded, his massive claw-hand releasing the grip it had and what little remained of him went floating back away from the station.

"Thanks for that, Ichigo," Kon said over the comm. He did the digital equivalent of leaning back from the _Zangetsu's_ firing controls, watching sedately from the nose camera as Fisher's remains tumbled inertly away from the airlock and out into space. _That was for Lirin,_ he thought bitterly. "I hope you're ready to roll, because we need to get moving here."

Turning away from the viewport, Ichgo looked around at the fallen bodies of the numerous Hollowfied surrounding them. "They don't seem to be active anymore," he mentioned out loud.

"Whatever carrier wave I was getting from your area is gone, so that might be it," Kon replied, bringing up the sensor logs.

"Ichigo, is that Kon?" Orihime asked, valiantly stifling pangs of loss.

"He's bringing the ship around, we need to go," Ichigo admitted, indicating himself and Uryu. Behind him, a great black mass was slowly lowering itself over the viewport, blotting out the stars and plunging the airlock into deep darkness.

"Tatsuki needs help, she's been de-pressurized too long," Mizuiro said, he and Keigo helping a disoriented Tatsuki between them.

"Fuug yuh, I kin fiiite," she slurred.

"There's a sanctuary pod not far from here," Keigo said, "They'll have depressurization meds there."

Orihime, concerned for her best friend, stared at Tatsuki and then around at the Hollowfied, eyes roving over them in turn. These things had taken her home from her, had taken her brother, and had hurt Tatsuki. She wasn't going to let them hurt anyone, anymore. She turned to Ichigo as the blastdoor irised open and the hatch of the docked ship spilled light all around him. "I'm coming with you, Ichigo."

"I am too," Chad said. "I can't let you go out there alone."

"Ahem," Uryu said, quietly indignant.

Dumbfounded, Ichigo glanced from Orihime to Chad. The fact that they were willing to risk their lives to help him, without even knowing the details of what might happen or how it came about, just off the simple fact that he was their friend and was going to walk into danger alone.. well mostly alone. "No, I'm sorry," he said with measure. "I can't ask you to risk your lives like this."

"I'm not asking, Ichigo," Chad said, his bionic arm clenching into a tight fist. "I'm telling you, I have your back in this."

"And I'm going to help too," Orihime affirmed. "No one knows their way around the outside of this station like me."

True strength, he knew, was in knowing when to trust in your friends. "Okay," he grudged as he turned towards his ship, inwardly a little relieved to have their presence. "Keigo, Mizuiro, get Tatsuki to that sanctuary pod, the rest of you come with me."

"Haaaayyy..." Tatsuki drawled, watching with an openly hurt look on her face as the others climbed aboard the long, sleek black ship outside the airlock. "Wheerrrre-ooooo go-innnn?" The others didn't meet her eye as the airlock door irised shut, the ship undocking and pushing gently away. "Whiff-ou me?"

* * *

"Orihime, take communications and astrometrics," Ichigo says, ducking his way beneath the low canopy and settling down onto the pilot's saddle. Hands finding the handlebar controls and feet settling onto the pegs like second nature, he turned over his should to watch the others come gawking in at the layout of the ship. "Chad, engineering station, you'll be working with Kon back in the engine room. Uryu-"

"Yes?" the bespectacled man replied, eyeing the elaborate ring-shaped weapon's station situated in the middle of the bridge.

"I have the perfect station for you," Ichigo said, pointing helpfully.

Uryu sat down and quickly realized what systems were up on the console. "Energy subsystem management? Really?"

"I figured a guy with your specialty in energy weapons would love those systems," Ichigo answered, smiling behind his helmet.

"We're gonna need you there anyway, four-eyes," Kon came on over the internal loudspeakers. "There's something I've been trying to tell you about this ship, but you've been in such a big damn hurry that You. Haven't. Been. Listening."

"Tell me on the way, Kon," Ichigo shot back, bringing the ship around hard and angling for where the _Hueco Mundo_ had been docked. "We've got one more to pick up."

* * *

"This. This can't be." Rukia had never been so certain of anything in her life, and yet the proof was before her, incontrovertible and substantive. "There's just... no way," she continued to deny.

"What?" Renji asked, not nearly as taken aback as Rukia felt was appropriate. "They're patients. Have you looked around? They refit this whole wing into a hospital ship for some reason, we were bound to find some eventually."

Rukia walked further into the ward, staring around with wide eyes. Eight hospital beds, each one occupied with a comatose patient. Eight hauntingly familiar patients. "You didn't see, you were on approach at the time," she realized, staring from face to face. Her eyes lingered on two in particular. "During the Parliamentary inquiry where my brother was questioned, a man made a presentation. He said 'test subjects' had been recovered, proving they were used in experiments with recombinant genetics." Rukia took a step closer to one of the beds, an unconscious young man lying there, his dark blonde hair falling messily across the pillow. She recognized him from the video feed she and Ichigo had seen when they had boarded the ore ship that had come hunting for them. "These are them, these are the patients that Sosuke Aizen said he was treating!"

"Okay."

Rukia whipped her head around to stare at Renji's back. "Okay? _Okay?!_ " she reiterated. "This isn't anything close to 'okay'. This is essentially how all the noble houses had their titles stripped and, and... and," Rukia looked back from Renji at the eight hospital beds in the ward. "And he's in on it." Realization hit her like a punch in the gut. "He's the 'Master' they were talking about on the comm relay station. Souske Aizen is behind it all."

"... Okay."

She threw up her hands. "I don't think you're appreciating the gravity of the situation here, Renji."

"No, I am," Renji said, somewhat distractedly. "It's just, well, I think we have bigger issues to deal with at the moment."

Interest piqued, Rukia came to look at what Renji was staring at. The far side of the ward was windowed off, looking down to an interior lab of some sort. The lab had been abandoned in haste, that much was obvious, but what dominated the center held their attention.

"Those are the patients from Aizen's little show for the Parliament?" he asked, and Rukia numbly nodded. "So, those must be the artifacts that were stolen from the houses." In the center of the lab and surrounded by sensitive monitoring equipment were three simple containers, each one open from the top. A fourth, a small cylindrical tank of murky teal liquid, stood beside the other three.

"Four houses," Rukia whispered, "Three artifacts... plus the one in Ichigo's head, except..." She stared down at the small tank of teal liquid, and then turned back to the eight patients lying in the hospital beds, a sinking suspicion gathering in her stomach. She left Renji's side in a rush, moving to one of the beds and gently tipping the chin of a young brunette woman to the side. "Renji, get over here and help me," she demanded when she couldn't get her head to move far enough.

"What are you doing?" he asked, still obliging her and lifting the young woman slightly away from the bed.

"Confirming my fears," Rukia shot back, finding a small incision in the back of her neck, right at the base of her spine. She turned away and forced Renji to help her check another one, finding an identical incision.

"They didn't have all the artifacts," Rukia said, her hands clenching into fists in the bedding. "They wanted all the artifacts together, to resonate the carrier wave, but they didn't have them all, so... so they... so they _made_ the last one." Rukia glanced around the ward, Renji following her gaze. "They made it out of these people."

"See that there?" Renji pointed. "That's a triton array, aimed at those containers. It's basically a big signal booster, that's what's drawing all the juice from the powerplant," he said. "It's blasting out that carrier wave at full power."

The two of them stood for a moment in silence. "You know what we have to do, don't you Renji?"

"Yeah," Renji sighed. "Not much way around it, if we want to stop all those Hollow ships buzzing around outside. What do we do about these people though?"

"Escape pods?"

Renji shook his head. "Already jettisoned, they wouldn't last more than a few minutes out there anyway, not with all those Hollow ships circling around."

Rukia glanced around, brows knit in concern. They were rapidly running out of time, the longer they stood around on this prison ship, the harder it was going to be to catch up to the others. Catch up... The spark of an idea beginning to catch. "Renji, have you ever had your crew attempt to board a prison ship?"

Renji groaned. "God no. Only target harder to breach is an escorted convoy carrying something like hard credits."

"These are still Navy ships though, right? What kind of armaments do these things have?" Rukia began checking the medical link of the nearest comatose patient and detaching leads and monitors.

"Uh," Renji began, staring at her as she busily finished up freeing the young man from the medical units he'd been attached to. "Standard stuff I guess, point-defense system, forward short range heavy rails, top and bottom, honestly they're not built to do serious assault. They're designed to just seal up and be impregnable."

"What about launch tubes?"

"Two at the fore." Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. "What are you planning?"

"I'm not planning, I'm improvising," was all she said, moving swiftly to a terminal and bringing up a comm panel. A few taps opened a channel from the _Hueco Mundo_ to the relays on the station, and from there she wide-angled a broadcast with what she hoped was a recognizable signature. It only took a couple more moments before vid-comm established and a familiar face came leaning into frame.

"Rukia-chan!" Urahara said, happily using archaic honorifics. "How can this humble transport captain be of assistance?"

Rukia smirked at his too-wide grin, seeing Yoruichi in the background smirking as well. "Do you think you can make it to these coordinates in about ten minutes?" she asked, schooling her features and transmitting a destination.

Kisuke pulled up the entry and sent to navigation, Yoruichi examining the course plot and turning back to him with a small nod. "Sure can!" he replied, turning back to her. "Any particular reason?"

"I need you to catch a few things," she explained, glancing around the hospital room. "About ten things." His jovial expression darkened behind his wide smile and Rukia found the subtle transition uniquely unnerving.

"And what is it that you're going to throw our way?"

She looked to Renji's expression of mortified comprehension. "Evidence." She cut the connection and turned away, releasing the wheel locks on the nearest hospital bed. "Come on Renji, I need you to cart these people down to forward weapons control."

"There are only eight people in beds, Rukia," Renji said, not moving an inch. "I hope you're thinking that-"

"You stuffed me in a body bag, Renji. It's time I return the favor."

"I didn't shoot you into space though," he muttered.

"You've got ten minutes," she said, her black hair fluttering as she spun about to head back to the bridge. She did the critical mass calculations in her head, resolutely putting one foot in front of the other. "I have to go scuttle this ship."


	33. Interlude 2: Null

Breathe.

All she could do was breathe. All she had to do to stay alive was to keep breathing as quietly as she could. In, out. Her mouth covered by both hands, eyes wide and staring in the darkness, she slowly let her lungs fill with precious air and tried very, very hard not to think that each one she took felt like a risk. Like a test. Like a gamble. Like a rigged game that she would eventually lose.

Thinking that would only let the fear of failure, of losing, take a firmer hold on her than it already had. The idea that the next breath she tried to take in, the next time she tried to reach for life-sustaining oxygen, it wouldn't be there was driving her mad. The sick clench in her stomach was tying itself to knots and the cold sweat trickling beneath her softsuit told her that her heart was starting to race. She bit the knuckles of the hand in her mouth, hard. Pain would allow her to focus on something other than her quickened pulse, her blood pumping through her body, cycling through her lungs. How it would need more oxygen. How she'd have to keep breathing.

She checked her link. Atmo pressure was at 62% of nominal, and falling. She shut it off before it could compute a terminal pressure, the point at which she'd pass out, gasping for the air that had bled out the cracks in the ruined ring, out into the dark reaches of nothingness.

There was a creaking groan from outside the barricaded door of her prison-sanctuary and every single ounce of her adrenalin fueled attention was directed at it. The structure she was in was either settling, or beginning to crumble. Silence reigned, nothing else stirred. The silence was worse in some ways than the screaming and pounding and rasping that had echoed through the halls earlier. In the confusion, no one knew what was happening. Then the fires had started, and the things that started roaming the station had started attacking. Panic had set in and people had scattered, some trying for sanctuary pods, some racing for moored ships, and some like herself had found themselves locked inside, erecting meager barriers and hoping both that no one and someone would find them.

She had been forced to endure the distant sounds of things she was terrified to identify, but they had died down and for the longest time there had been nothing. Now that the stillness in the dark had been broken she was forced to confront the decision she'd been dreading since locking herself in this tiny room. She was without a helmet. If she wanted to use her suit's supply she'd need to seal it, or find something with dedicated life support.

She'd have to venture out there.

She tightened her hands across her mouth and edged closer to the door, listening as hard as she could and fearing every shuffle of her own softsuit. Nothing. No sound stirred from outside the small, dark room she'd hid in and while she'd hoped of rescue, fear of attack had kept her quiet. Others had called for help, thinking rescue would come. Soon after, their screams had cut through her like a blade.

Hesitantly, she eased the heavy blockade of jumbled furniture away from the door, hazy yellow light spilling through the crack in the jamb. Waiting, patiently as she could manage, she watched the light and waited for anything to move. For the light to change in some subtle way that would tell her that something was moving in the hall. For a shadow to flit across the gap between door and frame and for darkness to come swallow her whole.

Still, she waited. Nothing moved. She eased out a held breath she hadn't known she'd taken but when she tried to draw in again, she felt the tightness across her chest telling her it was not enough. There was not enough air. She couldn't take a deep enough breath. She nearly made a sound of desperation, her hands steadying herself on the wall as she tried again. The tightness gave way to the dull, prickly ache of thinning air in her chest. Time, it seemed, was making her decision for her.

She slid gently towards the gap in the doorway and peered carefully outward. All she could see was hazy yellow light. There wasn't even enough air to hold motes of dust aloft anymore. What little she could see of the hall was empty, but it was small consolation. Fitting her fingers in the gap, she pushed and the door slid aside, mercifully silent, fitting neatly into the wall. Pushing it open just wide enough to slip through, she leaned out just far enough to peer down one end of the hall, then quickly swiveled back to face the opposite direction. She'd seen enough of these scenarios to know danger often crept up on you from behind.

Both directions were still and quiet, hazy yellow emergency lighting filtering down the hall from one end to the other. Taking a small, hesitant step into hall, she reached for the door across the way from her. Her fingers stilled before touching the panel though. No power, no way to unlock a door, no way of knowing what she might find on the other side. It could be another softsuit with a full tank, it could be something else. The feeling of exposure was overwhelming, standing in the hall as she way, but the threat of the unknown loomed behind the innocuous looking door. She slowly withdrew her hand, figuring, prudently of course, that she'd be better off in the hall, where she could see anything coming.

Glancing down the hall, she found her shadow cast one direction into gloom, and the glare of the light was blinding in the other. So much for being able to see. She held a hand up to block out the glare and began the slow, measured stride of the supremely cautious, slowly creeping down the hall towards the emergency light. Her foot sank a little too deeply into the carpet, the wet squelch seizing her with terror and her body went rigid. A long second passed before she tried lifting her foot, and only her foot, focusing very intently on anything other than what might be beneath her foot and the viscous way it sucked her boot to the floor. Foot freed, she slipped to the side and edged around whatever it was that had been spilled across the carpet.

Making it to the end of the hall relatively unscathed, she found herself at the landing. Empty window frames looked out into the wide arc of the ring, broken glassite crunching under her boots, and she moved to peer out into the gloom. Pale blue star light suffused the ring level, slanting in from the Sunroof above, and served a stark contrast to the harsh yellow behind her. Peering closer, there was something littering the ring level, leaving irregular bumps of shadow here and there.

Edging closer to the empty frames, she focused and then wished she hadn't. Wished she'd stayed in her hiding place. Wished she'd never moved out to this station in the first place. She'd been drawn to the wide open spaces and thought that living on the station would be romantic. If she'd known how cramped the quarters would be, how claustrophobic and impersonal and regimented life could get, if she'd known that one day she'd wake up to the station under attack, leaking air and covered in _bodies_ , she'd have never left home.

She turned away from the empty windows, the sick feeling rising in her gut, and began looking for some kind of exit from the structure she was in. She barely remembered coming here, ducking inside the storage room and pushing everything she could in front of the door. She'd rarely left the main habitat in all her time here and the thought of glancing out the Sunroof at the exterior of the huge cylinder made her nervous. She never felt so far away from home and so alone in all her life. Focus on the essentials, she scolded herself, and set back to work looking for a means of escape. A maintenance hatch apart from the main lift looked promising, perhaps it was access shaft from the bottom floor. She could climb down the ladder and find her way to a pod or to the Impelator if it was still running. The thought of rising back off this cracked and broken ring bubbled up within her, if there would be help anywhere, it'd be back on the main habitat. She tried very hard not to get her hopes up.

It was as she was moving towards the hatch, her pace quickening, when the doors to the lift opened. Before she knew what she was doing she was clumsily backpedaling away, one hand out in front of her and the other frantically waving about, trying to keep herself from falling. Above the clink of crunching glassite and her own heaving breaths came a wheezing groan from the shadows within the lift.

"No, oh no," she whispered, voice high and thready. Her heel hit something sending her off balance and screaming to land heavily on her rear. She gasped valiantly, but in vain, trying to recover what little air she could. "No no no no," she mouthed, twisting away and crawling across the glassite strewn floor, fingers reaching and searching for something to use to defend herself with. Unable to stop herself, the sound of a wheezing gasp chilled her, and she turned a look back over her shoulder.

Grayish skin, wrinkled in places it should not be and smooth in places unusual, covered the head of the figure emerging from the darkness. Arms at its sides, it stared straight ahead at her, taking a shaky step onto the landing. Its mouth worked, a guttural choking sound tearing its way past cracked lips and stained teeth. Sharp jags of metal strained against the tattered remnants of a softsuit, held by wire and cable and sinew and muscle. Its eyes, vacant and sunken, stared at her unblinkingly as it took another jerky step forwards.

"No, stay away from me!" she commanded.

She was unprepared when its head exploded.

Screaming out what little air she had, fear crawling up her spine and numbing her mind, she watched as blood, thick and dark, rain down to splatter across the floor. The thing, headless, remained upright for another eternal second before it fell as well. Wetly. With the sound of dense, lifeless meat.

She was going to be sick.

"Oh please, oh please," she quivered, panting for air, eyes wide and staring into the darkness of the lift. Something else came stumbling out of the dark, hunched and wounded. Whoever it was wore a brown, frayed cloak and it slumped heavily against the wall furthest from her. The floor beneath it was staining dark.

"You're..." she said, pushing herself back to her feet. "You're hurt." Her would-be savior twisted their cowled head a bit at her voice but made no other movement. It was strange, she thought, that someone would wear a brown tattered cloak with rainbows around it. And where did all the light go? Was she in a tunnel, she didn't remember going into a tunnel...

"I need air..." she heard herself say woozily. There was a part of her brain that knew she was beginning to suffer from oxygen deprivation, but it was the same part of her brain that tried to hold onto dreams after she'd awoken. Foggy, disjointed and nonsensical. Like these two yellow lamps swimming in front of her, like fireflies back home. She missed her home, she was safe there. She didn't like how afraid she felt being so far away. Maybe if she could catch the fireflies, they'd take her home. They'd make her feel safe again. She reached up to try to grasp them.

"You are dying."

She struggled to understand what the yellow glowing fireflies were talking about.

"I am dying," the fireflies said.

Well, at least she wasn't alone then.

"I am sorry... I wish... there was another way," she heard them mutter as they flutter. Hah, that rhymes, she giggled to herself. There must have been an ocean nearby because she could hear the sound of waves rolling and crashing. One of the fireflies stung her, the pain sharp but brief at the top of her neck.

The golden firefly lamps flickered out and a gentle cooling sensation trickled from the top of her head down throughout her body. The roar of the ocean faded and the dancing rainbow lights were ebbing away, replaced by the most curious sense of detachment she'd ever known. Her eyelids fluttered open like window shades someone else was controlling, and suddenly her perspective shifted, the vantage changing from staring at the ceiling to straight ahead, her body sitting up.

 _What? How..._ she wondered. _I didn't do that._

"Please do not be alarmed." The voice that spoke without her hearing was harsh and metallic. It was inside her head, like a pressure. There was someone else's voice, speaking out loud, _inside_ her head.

_HOLY SHIT_

"Please," the voice entreated, "I repeat. Do not be alarmed."

_I can hear a voice in my head that isn't my own oh my god I'm dead that's it that explains it it's in my head and I'm dead I can't believe I died on this fucking station shit shit shit._

"Please calm down," the voice went on.

Her perspective shifted again and she watched her own arms and hands lift the brown-cloaked body off of her legs, pushing it aside and standing. She wobbled inelegantly before her body caught itself. _It can hear me, I think, while I think it can hear me oh god what's happening?_

"Explanation will come, later," it spoke.

She felt like a back-seat passenger in her own body, watching out the front and hearing out the sides, but powerless to do anything. _Are you..._

"Do not worry about what I am, or what I was," the voice interrupted. "Simply know that I require your aid."

 _I can't believe this is happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening..._ The UI of her neural link filled her vision, but it was distorting and odd and flickered in places, like there was something else writing to it. _What are you doing?!_

"I am altering the consistency of your blood to enable continued functionality," came the reply.

_Oh god, this is happening._

A system status window she'd never seen before swam up in her vision, filling with detailed information. "Designation: Unit 3" was at the top. "Unit 3..." continued the voice, uncertainty creeping into the tone, making it smaller, unsure. The status window flipped to edit mode and the first line was erased. "This unit requires designation."

_Designation? Are you... are you asking me for a name?_

"Affirmative."

 _My name is..._ she gulped, mentally, wondering if she was crazy or not. _My name is Neliel, but... no one really calls me that._

She bent down and drew the tattered brown cloak from what had once contained her, giving it a regretful look. A first attempt, they had said. Poorly executed with more guesswork than knowledge. She shook her head at what she had been contained in. In response, waves of viridian tresses cascaded into her vision, to her surprise, and she brought her hands up to move them out of the way. Hands. She had hands, and fingers! Ten independently animated, sensor-laden digits, driven by contractable tensile tissue and controlled via electro-chemical network! Amazing! This was far superior to what she'd known before. She reined in her excitement, noting several neurological chemicals flooding her system.

She directed her attention back to the system status window, a cursor blinking next to "Designation:". She had spent so much time alone, abandoned, feeling the emptiness and loss and fear. She'd hid. She'd slipped unnoticed, first across vast reaches and then in vile servitude. She clenched her fist. No more. No more would she be nothing, cast aside and disregarded. If they would call her nothing, then she will forge for herself a new definition of it.

"You were Neliel. I was nothing." A new word appeared at the top of the system catalog. "Together, we are Null." The brown cloak was swept about her shoulders and she turned back to the view out the broken viewport windows. A long, sleek black shape blotted out the stars as it ghosted silently past, bringing a smile to her face. "And we have work to do."


End file.
